Get the HPV vaccine: It’s approved for girls and women ages 9 to 26, although many women in their 30s and 40s are asking their healthcare providers for it, and the manufacturer is seeking approval for expanded age groups. The vaccine doesn’t treat or cure HPV but can prevent new infections from types that you’ve not yet been exposed to.

Continue Pap or HPV tests: Begin within three years of the onset of sexual activity of any type or at age 21—whichever comes first. Continue through your 60s and beyond.

Ask for the HPV test: If you’re 30 or older, ask for HPV screening when you get a Pap test.

Don’t smoke: If you smoke, quit.

Practice safer sex: Using condoms and maintaining monogamous relationships decrease your risk of HPV exposure.

The first national study of its kind has recently found that American moms are less likely to vaccinate their youngest daughters even though earlier vaccination provides greater protection. Yet more than half of moms say they’ll get the vaccine for their daughters between ages 13 and 15, and most moms (86%) plan to have their daughters vaccinated by the time they’re between ages 16 to 18.

“Because HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection and [is] often acquired soon after the onset of sexual activity, the CDC recommends that HPV vaccination ideally occur before a girl becomes sexually active, as the vaccine will not reverse HPV infection,” says Jessica Kahn, MD, a physician in the division of adolescent medicine at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and the study’s lead author. For the study, Dr. Kahn and her colleagues surveyed 10,521 mothers of adolescents enrolled in the Growing Up Today Study (GUTS), a longitudinal study of the children of mothers participating in the Nurses Health Study II, between June 2006 and February 2007. “Younger girls are more likely than older girls to benefit from vaccination,” she says, stressing the need to begin protection long before HPV exposure can occur.

There are currently two vaccines, Gardisil and Cervirix, approved to protect against the two types of HPV, types 16 and 18. These two HPV types cause 70% of all cervical cancer. Additionally, Gardisil is also approved to protect against the two types of HPV that are responsible for 90% of all cases of genital warts. Clinical trials demonstrated that the vaccine was close to 100% effective in protecting women from these HPV types.


Girls are practicing riskier behaviors at younger ages. The vaccine can only protect a young woman before she has been exposed to HPV. The Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey reported that in 2003 one-third of ninth graders and two-thirds of 12th graders reported having sexual intercourse (not just sexual contact).

Earlier vaccination offers better protection. In vaccine trials, girls ages 9 to 15 showed the best levels of protection against HPV among all ages tested. What this means as far as how long these girls will be protected against HPV is unclear. So far, as with any new vaccine, the length of protection given isn’t known beyond six years and will continue to be studied.

Girls often begin risky behaviors before their parents know. Talk with your daughter about the known ways of reducing HPV and cervical cancer: don’t smoke, delay the start of sexual activity as long as possible, practice safer sex with condoms and engage in monogamous relationships only.

Help your daughter start the good habit of regular health checkups. Even before a Pap is needed, gynecological health visits are important so that she can learn about contraception, sexually transmitted infections and expected changes in her body as she continues into adolescence. Sadly, only 10% of teens have enough healthcare visits within 12 months to receive the recommended three shots needed for HPV vaccine, according to the journal Pediatrics.

The vaccine reduces abnormal Pap results that can lead to more testing, or even surgery. In a University of Alabama at Birmingham study released in March, Gardasil reduced abnormal Pap test results by 43% compared with results for unvaccinated women.

Want to know more about HPV, the test and the vaccine? Download a guide for teens and parents from awhonn.org.

In our mothers’ and grandmothers’ time cervical cancer killed a significant number of women and caused others to lose their ability to bear children. Women still die of cervical cancer today, but in the last 50 years cervical cancer screening with Pap tests has cut those numbers dramatically, to around 3,000 a year. Now we can tell our daughters that cervical cancer is a preventable disease. Breast and ovarian cancer advocates can only dream of a similar day.