Human papillomavirus self‐sampling: A tool in cancer prevention and sexual health promotion

Abstract

This article examines human papillomavirus (HPV) selfsampling as an approach to cervical cancer prevention and the ways self-sampling kits are promoted directly to consumers in the United States. Public health, biomedicine and health tech have increasingly imagined self-sampling, which allows individuals to collect their own vaginal specimen, mail to a laboratory for testing and receive delivered results, as a component of cervical cancer prevention and sexual health promotion. This article examines the scientific and biomedical claims used to configure the problem in need of this solution and the ways persons, publics and markets are established. We analyse scientific literature, interviews with clinicians and other key actors, and websites of directly to consumers (DTC) companies. HPV self-sampling is constructed as both a solution to inequities and gaps in cervical cancer screening and a solution to the wants and needs of those already engaged in self-projects of body monitoring and risk reduction. These multidirectional biomedical tendencies also reveal how sexuality and sexual health and cervical cancer prevention and sexual health promotion are entangled objects. While we do not want to undermine the potential of HPV self-sampling, we encourage a focus on equity and care and not commodified markets that reinforce notions of 'good' patients monitoring their health.

‘Don’t lose it on the bus!’: Casting the normative biosexual citizen in early Scottish pre‐exposure prophylaxis provision

“…We must pay attention, then, to how normative castings in local practice may challenge and/or undermine global claims of essential medicines. Moreover, our findings highlight how the idea of the 'deserving' biosexual citizen can shape how essential medicine may-or may not-be apportioned more widely across sexual health, with significant implications for those who may not perform in expected ways in sexual health areas that extend beyond HIV (e.g., Mamo et al, 2022;Sanabira, 2016).…”

Attitudes and Practices towards HPV Vaccination and Its Social Processes in Europe: An Equity-Focused Scoping Review

“…HPV vaccination coverage rates are affected by social norms (including of one's family, friends, healthcare professionals, and religious or community leaders) [10]. Social sciences research has been describing the processes through which individuals receive and manage medical definitions and interventions for their bodies, such as marketing from pharmaceutical industries and professional claims of knowledge [8,[11][12][13][14][15]. Trust in doctors, nurses, and other health professionals, in the healthcare system and the pharmaceutical industry, and patient-centeredness in care, influence health-related beliefs and HPV vaccine decision making [16][17][18][19][20].…”