Public awareness that HPV is a risk factor for cervical cancer

Abstract

We assessed awareness of human papillomavirus (HPV) in a population sample of British women (n ¼ 1620) using similar questions to those in a survey in 2002. Only 2.5% cited HPV as the cause of cervical cancer without prompting; up from 0.9% in 2002. Public education about HPV is urgently needed. There has been dramatic progress in understanding the role of human papillomavirus (HPV) in the aetiology of cervical cancer (Bosch and de Sanjosé, 2003). Human papillomavirus testing is likely to play a part in screening for cervical abnormalities (Cuzick et al, 2006). Prophylactic HPV vaccination has been shown to be highly effective at preventing infection (Villa et al, 2005), and is likely to be introduced in the United Kingdom in the near future.Despite the important public health implications of this work, knowledge about HPV in the general public appears to be low. Although surveys in Britain indicate that around 30% of young adults have 'heard of' HPV (Philips et al, 2003;Waller et al, 2003), this is probably little more than name recognition, because further questioning of women who say they are aware, found that fewer than half knew of the link with cervical cancer (Waller et al, 2003;Tiro et al, 2007). Using the open question 'What causes cervical cancer', the percentage mentioning HPV was less than 2% in surveys in the United Kingdom and Mexico (Lazcano-Ponce et al, 2001;Waller et al, 2004).The potential for a prophylactic vaccine has attracted a great deal of press coverage, and this may have increased knowledge of HPV. However, internet and newspaper articles are most likely to be accessed by higher SES groups (Pew Internet & American Life Project, 2006), so the educational impact could be stronger in more educated groups.The present study assessed awareness of HPV and knowledge of risk factors for cervical cancer in home-based interviews with a population-representative sample of British women. Responses were compared with results from a survey carried out in 2002 that used similar methods (Waller et al, 2004), making it possible to analyse changes over time. MATERIALS AND METHODSParticipants were women aged 16 -97 years from a stratified random probability sampling frame. Data were collected as part of the NatCen (National Centre for Social Research) omnibus survey. Using the Post Office Address File (PAF), 6100 addresses in England, Wales and Scotland were selected for recruitment between November 2006 and February 2007. The selected addresses were sent a letter informing them about the research. Data were collected during face-to-face computer-assisted interviews.Women were first asked an open question; 'Thinking of cervical cancer, what do you think is its main cause'. This was followed by 'What, if any, are other causes of cervical cancer'. Women were prompted using the phrase 'anything else' to encourage multiple responses. This was the same format as used in the 2002 survey (Waller et al, 2004). After that, women were asked a 'closed' awareness question: 'Before this interview, were you aware of HP...

National HPV Immunisation Programme: Knowledge and Acceptance of Mothers Attending an Obstetrics Clinic at a Teaching Hospital, Kuala Lumpur

“…Blacks respondents were less knowledgeable compared to White respondents (Cates et al, 2009). However, this finding is inconsistent with the previous study by Marlow et al (2007) to assess the public awareness on HPV as a risk factor for cervical cancer and found that there was no association between races either the respondents were White, Black, Hispanic, Asian or other race. This study also revealed that level of education had demonstrated to be a predictor to knowledge on National HPV immunisation programme.…”

Knowledge, Attitudes and Beliefs about Cervical Cancer and Human Papilloma Virus Vaccination with Related Factors in Turkish University Students

“…The relevant studies from Portugal (Medeirosa and Ramadab, 2011), the Unites States of America (Allen et al, 2009a), Malaysia (Wong and Sam, 2010) and Poland (Kamzol et al, 2013) were conducted with university students and reported that knowledge level of the university students were low. In the community-based studies from United Kingdom (Marlow et al, 2007), Germany (Klug et al, 2008), China (Li et al, 2009;Lee et al, 2007), Holland (Lenselink et al, 2008), Korea (Kim, 2012) and Japan (Hanley et al, 2014) and United Arab Emirates (Ortashi et al, 2013) it was found out that community knowledge levels and awareness about HPV and cervical cancer was low whereas it was high in the United States of America (Jain et al, 2009) and Belgium (Donder et al, 2009).…”

Awareness of Risk Factors for Cancer among Omani adults- A Community Based Study

“…Nonetheless, studies conducted in the UK and USA (more liberal societies) showed that only 2.5% of female respondents in the UK and less than 50% of female respondents in the USA knew that the virus is sexually transmitted and can cause cervical cancer. Hence urgent public education about the role of HPV in cancer has been suggested (Marlow et al, 2007).…”