Parental Support for HPV Vaccination Mandates Among African Americans: The Impact of Message Framing and Consideration of Future Consequences.

Is parents' support for mandating human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination for their adolescent children influenced by how the policy advocacy message is framed? In this research, we conducted an experiment in which a group of African-American parents were exposed to messages advocating HPV vaccination mandates that were framed in either gains or losses. Our results demonstrate the importance of considering the personality trait - consideration of future consequences - when assessing the efficacy of gain- and loss-framed health advocacy. We found that parents responded more positively to gain-frames if they focused on the distant future and to loss-frames if they focused on the immediate future. Thus, it is important to recognize that public support of HPV vaccination policy is not only contingent on the message-based educational strategy employed to parent, but on the degree to which parents consider how present behaviors influence future well-being.