Grant: Doctoral Award - Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarships

Gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (MSM) are recommended to get the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine. Most Canadian provinces have introduced publicly funded HPV vaccination programs for boys and high-risk males such as MSM, but we do not know how well the HPV vaccine works in these populations outside of a clinical setting. MSM have higher rates of HPV-associated diseases like anal cancer compared to the general population. In part, this is because they have higher rates of HIV. Based on clinical studies, we know that the HPV vaccine protects against infection about 75-78% of the time in healthy MSM who have had relatively few lifetime sex partners. However, less information is known about how this translates to vaccine protection in a real-life setting or in higher risk groups, such as those who have multiple sex partners or prior HPV infection or in those living with HIV. My PhD will study how well the HPV vaccine protects against ongoing HPV infection in MSM over a one-year period. I will estimate the percent of MSM infected with HPV at the beginning of the study and 12 months after enrollment; identify patient characteristics, such as sexual behaviours or HIV status, associated with infection; and measure the amount of protection from HPV vaccine. I will use data from a community-based study of MSM aged 16-30 years in Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal known as Engage-HPV. At each study visit, men answered questions about their sexual health, including self-reported HPV vaccination status. They were also asked to self-collect oral and anal specimens for HPV testing. This research will fill an important knowledge gap about ongoing HPV infection in this population and will provide a real-world measure of HPV vaccine effectiveness. My findings will help evaluate targeted HPV vaccination programs recently implemented in three Canadian cities with large populations of MSM and contribute to the design of optimal HPV prevention strategies.