MD Anderson researcher says CPRIT-funded HPV outreach now includes vaping prevention

Jane Montallegre, an associate professor at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, said a Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT)-funded cancer prevention program that promotes HPV vaccination among adolescents has expanded to include prevention of vaping and electronic-cigarette use.

Montallegre said the program is a multilevel intervention that works directly with pediatric and family-practice providers. “We started thinking, well, what else what else can pediatricians do? And we started talking about vaping as a problem … we gotta get pediatricians and pediatric providers to help sort of stop this terrible growth in, the use of vaping and electronic cigarettes,” she said.

The program originally focused on increasing delivery of the HPV vaccine to adolescent and pediatric populations. Montallegre said staff already visit clinics to support vaccination work and used those same visits to add counseling and prevention efforts aimed at vaping. “If we're doing this anyway, let's do it for both,” she said.

She described CPRIT-funded prevention services as enabling access to cancer-prevention care that otherwise might not be available to many people. “Because of the levels of funding, we're able to do that for thousands and thousands of people,” Montallegre said. She added, “It's the most beautiful example of government working for the people.”

Remarks in the transcript focused on program design and outreach strategy; the transcript did not specify grant award amounts, specific clinic partners by name, or an implementation timeline.