Overview
- A Penn-led randomized clinical trial of nearly 1,300 parents found that brief conversations with a GPT-4o-based chatbot increased stated intention to vaccinate children against HPV compared with no outreach.
- The trial, reported June 9 in JAMA Network Open, required a minimum three-minute exposure and measured intentions at 15 and 45 days to compare the chatbot against official written public health materials.
- At the 45-day check the written-materials group showed equal or higher vaccination intent than the chatbot group, showing the chatbot’s early advantage did not persist over time.
- Neither the chatbot nor the written materials increased the share of parents who reported their children received the HPV vaccine within 45 days, highlighting barriers beyond messaging that block intent from becoming action.
- Study authors say future tests should give chatbots agentic functions such as appointment scheduling, reminders and clinician linkage and should evaluate effects in diverse local and global communities while guarding against hallucination and access gaps.