Kenyan Men and Cervical Cancer Prevention: Insights from a National Survey

Engaging men may contribute to cervical cancer prevention; however, little is known about what factors may be associated with men's engagement in cervical cancer prevention and therefore where interventions should focus.

During a national phone survey in Kenya, we asked male respondents about whether their daughters had received the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine and whether they had spoken with their wife/partner about cervical cancer screening. In this exploratory analysis, we used these secondary data in Poisson generalized linear models with robust error variance to explore relationships between factors hypothesized to be associated with these two outcomes. We report adjusted relative risk (aRR).

To this analysis, 600 men contributed data, of whom 45.3% had discussed cervical cancer with their wife/partner and 30% reported having a daughter vaccinated against HPV. Knowledge was poor for some items, including that men can get HPV. Men with higher knowledge more often had discussed screening [aRR, 1.17; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.11-1.24] and had a vaccinated daughter (aRR, 1.09; 95% CI, 1.01-1.17). Discussing cervical cancer and institutional trust were both significantly associated with engaging in these cervical cancer prevention behaviors. Men who knew someone with cervical cancer spoke more with their wives/partners about screening (aRR, 1.67; 95% CI, 1.38-2.00).

Both intrapersonal and interpersonal factors were found to be associated with men's engagement in cervical cancer prevention behavior.

Interventions that increase men's knowledge about cervical cancer and leverage social relationships and community health workers may be particularly effective at improving cervical cancer prevention efforts.