Overview #
This project co-created an Instagram campaign with Italian teenagers to help promote the HPV vaccine. Despite free access to HPV vaccination in Italy, coverage among adolescents remains low, particularly among boys. Vaccine hesitancy (VH), low perceived risk, and information avoidance are well-documented barriers that undermine traditional communication campaigns.
Abstract #
Vaccine hesitancy (VH), low perceived risk, and information avoidance are well-documented barriers that undermine traditional communication campaigns with teenagers. Adolescents often receive inconsistent or overly medicalised messages that fail to engage them meaningfully. Recognising this gap, the HPVoice campaign (included in the activitities of Spoke 10 in the Tuscany Health Ecosystem progect, funded by the European Union-Next Generation EU, Mission 4 Component 1, CUP B83C22003920001) implemented a participatory strategy that positioned adolescents not merely as targets but as co-creators of health communication.
The intervention focused on co-designing Instagram posts with high school students in Tuscany, aiming to co-create content that is peer-relevant, emotionally resonant, and behaviourally informed. Through a two-phase workshop held in a secondary school, students first received psychoeducational input on HPV, sexual health, and vaccine access. Then, in small peer-led groups, they co-created mock-up social media content addressing key vaccination themes. The co-designed posts were later reviewed by health professionals and used to populate two intervention Instagram pages, which the team tested in a three-arm randomised controlled trial (RCT) involving over 500 students across 22 high school classes.
Although the RCT results showed limited overall impact on HPV knowledge and VH, the intervention was effective in specific subgroups. Notably, among students with low levels of information avoidance, exposure to the co-created content significantly reduced VH and increased willingness to seek information from sexual health services. Conversely, more traditional, fact-heavy messages the study found to backfire among information-avoidant students, increasing resistance.
This case study demonstrates the value of integrating participatory design methods into digital health promotion for young people. The process not only generated engaging and context-sensitive content, but also empowered students to take active roles in vaccine communication. Specifically, for social marketing context, the project highlights the limitations of one-size-fits-all messaging and underscores the importance of tailoring content to audience receptivity and psychological traits. The team grounded in social marketing and behavioural science, with particular reference to participatory design and youth health communication.
Access #
Dario Menicagli – University of Florence (dario.menicagli@unifi.it)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X26002744
Location #
Tuscany; Italy
Key words #
HPV, Vaccine, Adolescents, Co-creation, Participatory, Instagram, Teenagers, WSMC-Alicante
