Few Parents Fear Cervical Cancer Jab Causes Promiscuity In Teens

Main Category: Cervical Cancer / HPV Vaccine
Also Included In: Cancer / Oncology
Article Date: 05 Sep 2008 - 0:00 PST

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Few parents worry that vaccinating their daughters against human papillomavirus (HPV) and cervical cancer would cause promiscuity.

This is the finding of Dr Noel Brewer and colleagues from the University of North Carolina, USA and the Centers for Disease Control who will present their findings on Tuesday 9 September 2008 at the British Psychological Society's Division of Health Psychology's Annual Conference being held at the University of Bath.

Cervical cancer kills almost 1,000 women every year in the UK. It is caused by HPV which can affect the skin, including the lining of the throat, anus and cervix. It can be transmitted by skin-to-skin contact, including having sex. Some types of HPV can cause genital warts, while other types can cause cervical cancer and other cancers.

As HPV can be transmitted via sex, some conservative groups have expressed concern that vaccinating adolescent girls against HPV will encourage them to become promiscuous. This research set out to see if these attitudes were prevalent amongst parents of adolescent girls.

Parents or guardians of nearly 900 girls (aged 9 to 18 years old) in US were questioned about whether they felt HPV vaccinations would cause promiscuity. Less than 20% of those questioned believed that this would, and less than 1% of parents named promiscuity concerns as their main reason for not getting their daughters the vaccine

Dr Brewer commented; 'Most parents and guardians of adolescent girls support HPV vaccination. There has been much debate in the media about the dangers of vaccinations and whether the HPV vaccine will lead to an epidemic of promiscuity amongst young women. These findings show that most parents see the vaccinations as a necessity to protect the health of their daughters and dispel the myth that so many are concerned about the effect on their daughters' sexual behaviour. Policy makers need to see these unusual beliefs as a risk factor for parents not vaccinating their daughters, rather than a reason to withhold the vaccine from the many parents eager to get their daughters the vaccine.'

British Psychological Society