Human Communication Research ISSN 0360-3989 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Does Mother Know Best? An Actor–Partner Model of College-Age Women’s Human Papillomavirus Vaccination Behavior Janice L. Krieger 1 , Jennifer A. Kam 1 , Mira L. Katz 2 , & Anthony J. Roberto 3 1 School of Communication, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA 2 College of Public Health, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA 3 Hugh Downs School of Communication, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA This study examined the associations of perceived threat, perceived efficacy, and parent– child communication with the extent to which college-age women received the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine. Daughters and their mothers completed a survey about the HPV vaccine (N = 182 dyads). The results showed that mothers’ perceived self-efficacy to talk to their daughters and mothers’ response efficacy of the vaccine were indirectly related to mother – daughter communication about HPV. Further, mother – daughter communication mediated the relation between mothers’ intention to talk to their daughters and daughters’ HPV vaccination behavior. This study demonstrates the importance of the social context of health behavior and the role of communication in understanding maternal influence on the HPV vaccination behavior of young adult women. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2958.2010.01395.x The field of communication has made substantial contributions to understanding key social issues in recent decades. One such contribution has been the development of communication theory to understand behavioral health outcomes. Theoretical models, such as the extended parallel process model (EPPM; Witte, 1992) and the risk perception attitude (RPA) framework (Rimal & Real, 2003) articulate how psychological perceptions of threat and efficacy can both result from communication (i.e., message effects) or prompt communication behavior (i.e., intention to engage in social influence). Past and current research on the theoretical constructs of threat and efficacy focus almost entirely on individual perceptual processes, making related theoretical models vulnerable to the critique that they ignore the social context of health behavior (Stokols, 1992). Meanwhile, literature has evolved in the interpersonal area that considers how individual perceptual processes influence perceptual and behavioral outcomes of others (Caughlin & Malis, 2004; Ramirez, 2008; Theiss & Corresponding author: Janice L. Krieger; e-mail: raup-krieger.1@osu.edu Human Communication Research 37 (2011) 107–124  2010 International Communication Association 107