Prevalence of genital human papillomavirus in suburban women: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Cervical cancer has been recognized as an important health problem in women. Infection with some genotypes of human papillomavirus (HPV) is the most important risk factor associated with cervical cancer. The present study was conducted with aim to estimate the prevalence of genital HPV in suburban women.

In this systematic and meta-analysis study from February 20 to March 20, 2023, databases of Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed and Embase and Google scholar search engine were searched without time restrictions using the keywords such as "papillomavirus", "genital wart" and "suburban population" and relevant synonyms. In the selection criteria, observational studies on the prevalence of genital papillomavirus in suburban women were included. Heterogeneity of the studies was evaluated with I2 and Cochran's Q test. Funnel plot and Egger & Begg tests were used to assess the publication bias of the studies.

Finally, 10 studies with a sample size of 65,813 remained in accordance with the purpose of our study. The results of the meta-analysis showed that the overall prevalence of HPV in suburban women was 17% (95% CI: 13-21%) and HPV/16 genotype with a prevalence of 18% (95% CI: 13-23%) was the most common genotype in the affected people.

In general, the prevalence of genital papilloma virus infection was relatively high in suburban women. This result can be useful for policy makers in planning preventive strategies for cervical cancer in poor and low-income environments.