Abstract
Risk factors for incident human papillomavirus (HPV) infections are undefined in young women who use internet dating Web sites. From 2010-2012 we followed 18- to 24-year-old female internet daters (N = 164) triannually for a mean of 1 year. Women collected and returned self-collected vaginal samples for HPV genotyping and health and behavior questionnaires. We used Kaplan-Meier methods to estimate incidence of clinically relevant HPV infection (high-risk HPV, HPV-6, or HPV-11) and generalized estimating equations and Firth logistic regression to identify associated risk factors. At enrollment, women reported a median lifetime number of six male sex partners, and 36% reported a history of HPV vaccination. The 12-month cumulative incidence of clinically relevant HPV was 32.9% (95%CI: 26.0-41.0%). Reporting a recent male sex partner met via the internet versus not was not significantly associated with incident HPV (odds ratio [OR] = 0.91, 95%CI: 0.53-1.55). In multivariate analysis adjusted for lifetime number of partners, reporting new and/or multiple partners in the past 6 months was positively associated with incident HPV (OR = 6.38, 95%CI: 1.56-26.02, compared to reporting no recent partners). In a separate model, self-reporting ≥1 dose of HPV vaccine was inversely associated with vaccine-type HPV (6/11/16/18) (OR = 0.21, 95%CI: 0.05-0.86), but the association was attenuated and not statistically significant after adjusting for sexual history (OR = 0.36, 95%CI: 0.09-1.43). While recent high-risk sexual behavior was associated with incident HPV, sex with partners met via the internet was not associated with increased HPV risk in young female internet daters. Although not statistically significant after adjusting for sexual history, HPV vaccination showed substantial protection against vaccine-type HPV infection.