UTHealth Houston’s All for Them project for vaccination outreach receives nearly $2.5M CPRIT grant
Published: February 23, 2024
All for Them, a vaccination program run by UTHealth Houston School of Public Health, will continue its work to protect Texas youth against HPV-related cancers with almost $2.5 million in funding from The Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT).
“I was thrilled to hear that we were awarded the opportunity from CPRIT to continue this important cancer prevention work for four more years,” said Paula Cuccaro, PhD, All for Them program director and assistant professor of health promotion and behavioral sciences at UTHealth Houston School of Public Health. “Our team has worked hard over the past seven years to expand our reach, build relationships with our communities, and ensure young people receive life-saving vaccines when they otherwise may not have access to them.”
Through this grant, the All for Them team will continue to offer school-based mobile vaccination clinics in four Texas school districts serving students living in Chambers, Harris and Tarrant counties. To supplement the clinics, All for Them employs an educational component for parents and youth that highlights the importance of obtaining all recommended vaccines. Recognizing their essential role in students’ health, All for Them also provides training on HPV and HPV vaccination to school nurses and nursing staff.
In addition to these strategies, All for Them will now coordinate larger districtwide and communitywide clinics so that as many families as possible will have the opportunity to protect their children’s health through comprehensive vaccination. The team will also provide school nurse assessment and feedback aimed at improving HPV vaccination record keeping.
“In our participating school districts, the HPV vaccination rates we are seeing continue to improve but are still suboptimal compared to the national rates,” Cuccaro said. “This project allows us to keep building on our momentum and raise the awareness of the importance of HPV vaccination.”
Since 2017, more than 7,000 Texas youth have received at least one vaccine at an All for Them clinic, which includes all recommended childhood and adolescent immunizations. Of those, more than 5,000 received the HPV vaccine, protecting them from six types of cancer.
“I look forward to continuing to build trust in our partner communities, both with the families we serve and other local community-based organizations,” said Efrat Gabay, MPH, All for Them senior program manager. “Mostly, I’m excited that we can continue to help families receive the vaccination services they need.”
Cuccaro agreed.
“This work is ‘all for them,’ and we appreciate families’ commitment to doing what’s best for their children,” she said.