Most Americans Do Not Fully Understand the Link Between HPV and Cancer

At the 2023 American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting, Eric Adjei Boakye, PhD, shared survey data revealing that most Americans do not comprehensively understand the link between human papillomavirus (HPV) and cancer. Although most respondents acknowledged the association between HPV and cervical cancer, many did not fully understand how many kinds of cancer were linked to HPV infection.

According to National Cancer Institute (NCI) data, nearly all cervical cancers are linked to HPV infection. Beyond cervical cancer, HPV has been associated with oropharyngeal, anal, penile, vaginal, and vulvar cancers.

Data suggests that roughly 3% of all cancers diagnosed in females can be traced back to an HPV infection. Similarly, 2% of all cancers in males may be linked to HPV. Combining those statistics, researchers estimate that HPV causes 36,000 cancer detected in the United States annually.

“Over 90% of HPV-associated cancers could be prevented with the HPV vaccination, yet vaccine uptake remains suboptimal,” explained Adjei Boakye, lead author on the survey, assistant scientist in the Department of Health Sciences, and the Department of Otolaryngology at Henry Ford Health in Detroit in the press release.

To better assess the public’s knowledge of HPV and HPV prevention, Adjei Boakye and his colleagues looked at data from the Health Information National Trends Survey in 2014 and 2020, analyzing between 2,000 and 2,350 respondents in each time frame.

The study asked the respondents if they thought HPV could cause anal, cervical, oral, and penile cancers, requiring them to answer “yes,” “no,” or “not sure” to each type of cancer.

In 2014, 77.6% of respondents knew that HPV was linked to cervical cancer. Despite a high correlation between the two, in 2022, only 70.2% of respondents knew the conditions were connected.

Significantly lower understanding rates were evident for each of the other cancer categories. In 2014, 27.9% of participants understood the tie between HPV and anal cancer, dropping to 27.4% in 2020. The knowledge of oral cancer and HPV also dropped from 31.2% to 29.5% between 2014 and 2020.

Finally, with the lowest rates of understanding, the link between penile cancer and HPV was only known by 30.3% of participants in 2014 and 28.4% in 2020.

“Given the connections between HPV-associated cancer awareness and HPV vaccination uptake, it is important we increase the population’s awareness of this link, as it may help increase vaccine uptake,” Adjei Boakye added.