Public knowledge about HPV and vaccinations

Public knowledge and awareness about HPV, the HPV vaccination and screening are important to ensure that engagement with the screening and vaccination programmes is optimal and that the UK is able to halt the declining cervical screening numbers and to ensure protect against any possible future downturn in HPV vaccination as experienced in countries such as Japan, France and Ireland following successful anti-vaccination media campaigns.

HPV and HPV Vaccination

Following the PLOS One publication, Dr Sue Sherman was invited by Peter Baker of HPV Action, to review a new website that they were launching to inform the public about the need for male HPV vaccination. She is now part of the expert advisory group for the website. She has also published a piece in The Conversation about the research. This piece has been read by 4,697 readers, received 23 comments, 70 retweets and 246 shares on Facebook. It was also republished by Medical Xpress, a web-based medical and health news service. There was a companion video which has been viewed 1.7k times and she gave an interview on Radio Stoke about the research.

HPV and cervical screening

The BMJ paper received extensive local, national and international media coverage on and around 15th June 2015 (the start of Cervical Screening Awareness Week 2015), including the Today Programme, Woman's Hour, BBC 5 Live and national newspapers such as The Guardian, The Independent, The Telegraph. International coverage in 14+ countries. A sample source is provided: a video clip of Sue being interviewed on the BBC Breakfast Show . In a joint press release, Rob Music, the Chief Executive of Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust reiterated the importance of the piece as it reiterates “an urgent need to not only increase survival rates for women in this age group but decrease the numbers diagnosed altogether” and highlights the need that “women of all ages are educated around the cause of cervical cancer and their risk of HPV”.