Danielle Pinnick, NDSU Center for Immunization Research and Education’s AFIX project manager, has been recognized with the top-ranked abstract for Prevent Cancer Foundation’s upcoming national symposium.
She has been invited to display her poster, “Human Papillomavirus Prevention in North Dakota’s Youth: Early Results of an HPV Educational Project Targeted at Health Care Professional Communication” during the conference April 11-13 in McLean, Virginia.
Pinnick will receive special recognition at the event and have an exclusive video interview posted on the foundation’s website and featured in a blog post.
AFIX is a quality improvement program conducted by Centers for Disease Control's immunization program awardees to support Vaccines for Children providers in their areas. The NDSU center’s project is housed in the Department of Public Health. The Prevent Cancer Foundation provided a $25,000 community grant to the project to improve turnout at events and broaden the scope of the project.
“It is truly an honor to have this organization recognize our work,” Pinnick said. “This is a great way to show how important North Dakota’s outstanding medical providers and nurses are to improve vaccine confidence and acceptance, in our various communities.”
The project, so far, has reached 57 clinics and educated 562 medical professionals, as it works to provide peer-to-peer education to pediatric and family medicine health care providers to reinforce the importance of vaccinations against HPV, which can lead to a variety of cancers. After six months, the project has seen initiations of HPV vaccine increase by 3.6 percent and subsequent eligible doses increase by 5.3 percent in the clinics where educational visits have been held.
Pinnick earned her bachelor’s and Master of Public Health degrees at NDSU.
The Prevent Cancer Foundation is a non-profit organization founded in 1985. It focuses on cancer prevention and early detection, and has invested about $140 million to support cancer research, education, outreach and advocacy.
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