86 - Routine vaccination coverage in a vulnerable adolescent transgender population in a large tertiary care center in the U.S.

Poster Number: 86
Publication Number: 86.149

Teaghen A. Buscemi-Kimmins, SUNY Upstate Medical University Norton College of Medicine, Syracuse, NY, United States; Nicole M. Mozo, Suny upstate, Syracuse, NY, United States; Karen L. Teelin, SUNY Upstate Medical University Norton College of Medicine, Syracuse, NY, United States; Jana Shaw, SUNY Upstate, Syracuse, NY, United States

Background: The transgender community faces barriers including challenges accessing, trusting, and receiving health care services, leading to disparities in preventive and specialty care. Despite these barriers, previous studies have indicated that transgender adults have comparable or higher rates of vaccination when compared to their cisgender peers. Routine vaccination coverage in adolescent transgender individuals has not been assessed.  

Objective: We sought to assess coverage for all recommended vaccines among adolescents referred for gender affirming care.

Design/Methods: We utilized de-identified health information from the electronic medical record in a tertiary care, specialty adolescent medicine clinic offering gender affirming care. For all active patients referred for transgender care between 2013 and 2022, we extracted age, gender identity, race and ethnicity, and other clinical information. Active patients were defined as those with an office visit within that past three years (from 2019 to 2022). Vaccination histories for MenACWY, HPV, and Tdap were collected via New York State Immunization Information System (NYSIIS). Patient vaccination status was determined based on CDC vaccination schedule. Vaccination rates were compared to age-matched adolescents living in New York State using the CDC National Immunization Survey-Teen.

Results: Among 203 transgender patients ages 13 to 17 years, with mean age 15.6±1.3 (SD) years, 138 (68.0%) identified as male, 40 (19.7%) as female, 8 (3.9%) as nonbinary, and 17 (8.4%) as another gender identity, respectively (Table 1). Compared to the general NYS adolescent population, transgender patients had similar vaccination coverage for all vaccines except for Tdap and HPV, for which transgender patients had significantly higher coverage (Table 2).

Conclusion(s): Our findings suggest that transgender adolescents with established care in a gender affirming clinic have similar or higher rates of vaccination coverage than the general adolescent population. These results stress the importance of health care access and a gender affirming support system as means of mitigating health disparities such as vaccination in the transgender community.