Occupational HPV exposure and vaccination among healthcare workers: Implications for institutional vaccination strategies.

Healthcare workers may be exposed to HPV physically through occupational contact or while counseling patients with HPV conditions. Despite this exposure, HPV vaccination uptake among healthcare workers remains suboptimal. The relative contributions of demographic, cognitive, and occupational factors to vaccination behavior, risk perception, and vaccine advocacy in the context of institutional prevention strategies are not well defined. Our aim is to identify independent predictors of HPV vaccine uptake, perceived occupational HPV risk, and willingness to recommend HPV vaccination among healthcare workers, with the goal of informing institutional vaccination strategies. This cross-sectional survey study included healthcare workers from different specialties and evaluated HPV vaccine uptake, perceived occupational HPV risk, and willingness to recommend vaccination. We used predictors such as age, sex, clinical role, HPV knowledge, misconceptions, and vaccine safety beliefs then analyzing using multivariable logistic regression. Among 318 healthcare workers, 41.6% reported prior HPV vaccination. The majority (53.8%) worked in Internal Medicine. Vaccine uptake was strongly associated with age; those aged 27-45 had higher odds than those >45 y (aOR 7.03). Sex and HPV knowledge were not significant predictors. Perceived occupational HPV risk was linked to specialty, with dermatology showing higher risk perception (aOR 2.35), and inversely related to age (aOR 0.97 per year). Willingness to recommend HPV vaccination was high and driven mainly by confidence in vaccine safety (aOR 14.6). These findings suggest targeted, role-specific strategies beyond education to inform institutional HPV vaccination strategies.