Tackling Low HPV Vaccination Uptake in Sub-Saharan Africa

Tackling Low HPV Vaccination Uptake in Sub-Saharan Africa

📌 Client: UNICEF 

🎯 Goal: Increase HPV vaccination uptake in South Africa, where cervical cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among women

Despite a public school vaccination programme, uptake was just 3% in 2020. We uncovered the psychological barriers and designed a strategy that made the vaccination process clearer, more appealing, and easier to act on.

🚧 Barriers Identified 

🧠 Low Awareness: Nearly 47% of parents in Gauteng didn’t know the vaccine existed.

😟 Misconceptions & Stigma: Fears that the vaccine affects fertility and discomfort around STIs caused hesitation.

📄 Consent Friction: Parents had to sign and return forms — a key drop-off point.

🧠 Our Strategy & Insights

To design an effective solution, we used the COM-B model to map out behavioural drivers and barriers.

The COM-B model helps us understand what drives behaviour. It breaks it down into three key components:

🧠 Capability: Do people have the knowledge or skills to take action? (In our case, do parents have the right information about the HPV vaccine?)

🚪 Opportunity: Are there external factors or barriers that make it easier or harder to take action? (For instance, the logistics of getting consent forms signed and returned.)

🔥 Motivation: Are people motivated to act? (This focuses on whether parents and children are encouraged to get vaccinated.)

🎯 Our research revealed:

❌ Limited capability: Parents didn’t understand the purpose of the vaccine.

❌ Low motivation: Misconceptions and social stigma discouraged consent.

❌ Limited opportunity: Distribution and return of forms was unreliable.

✅ Our Recommendation

We created a multi-part intervention integrating education, incentives, and social influence — all delivered via the existing school system.

🔍 Estimated Impact

Based on previous studies:

🟢 Trinket incentives: Boosted uptake by 20% in similar contexts (Yau et al., 2023).

🟢 Communication interventions: Achieved up to 84% uptake in Sub-Saharan regions (Oketch et al., 2023).

📈 Projected Increase: Our integrated approach is estimated to increase HPV uptake by 15–20%.

💬 Client Feedback

"Team 10 did well to show the vaccine hesitancy challenge and offered a tight package of interventions which could easily be integrated into the current system of the school-based programme. They also did a good job on the cost and impact estimates, which would allow for provinces to include the production/distribution costs in annual budget estimates and allocations (and advocacy to promote this as no budget is allocated)."

— UNICEF South Africa

🚀 How This Applies to Your Business 

You can apply the same behavioural framework to your customers:

🧠 Capability: Do they understand your product or how to use it?

🚪 Opportunity: Are there unnecessary steps or confusing touchpoints?

🔥 Motivation: Are you tapping into social proof, emotion, or incentives?

Whether it's increasing form submissions, product trials, or long-term engagement — psychology reveals the why behind action.

Want to uncover what’s holding your customers back — and how to move them forward? 

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