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Letters |15 December 2015

Sexual Orientation Identity Disparities in Awareness and Initiation of the Human Papillomavirus Vaccine

Madeline Sterling, MD, MPH

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TO THE EDITOR:
Agénor and colleagues' study (1) is one of the first to examine the association between sexual identity and human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination among adolescent and young adult women by using a large, national probability sample and a validated measure of sexual orientation. The results suggest that lesbians and bisexual women are less likely to initiate HPV vaccination than heterosexual women. Unfortunately, this discrepancy highlights further disparities in our health care system for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning persons.
Low rates of HPV vaccination among lesbian and bisexual women have been described in the literature as a multifactorial phenomenon (2). Lesbian and bisexual women are less likely to have health insurance and access to primary care providers and to engage in Papanicolaou testing (3) than heterosexual women. In addition, they are less familiar with how HPV is transmitted (4) and thus less likely to feel susceptible to infection.
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Sterling M. Sexual Orientation Identity Disparities in Awareness and Initiation of the Human Papillomavirus Vaccine. Ann Intern Med. 2015;163:960. doi: 10.7326/L15-5182

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Published: Ann Intern Med. 2015;163(12):960.

DOI: 10.7326/L15-5182

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