Third-person effects of HPV vaccination news: Exploring the relationships among media exposure, presumed media influence, and Chinese female college students’ behavioral intentions

As the age-appropriate population for the HPV vaccine increases, the vaccination intention of female college students has become one of the hot issues of social concern. This study focuses on the indirect effect of HPV vaccine reports on Chinese female college students and tries to construct a health communication model for this indirect effect. With the help of structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis, the theoretical framework of the study was supported by empirical data. The results show that Chinese college women's knowledge of the HPV vaccine will directly affect their willingness to engage in health behaviors such as vaccination, and that the frequency of media exposure and openness to sexuality will indirectly affect their willingness to engage in behaviors by influencing their perception of third-person effects, although they cannot directly affect their willingness to engage in behaviors.