Socioeconomic and lifestyle factors associated with HPV infection in pregnant women: a matched case-control study in Beijing, China

BACKGROUND: Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection plays key role in the development of cervical cancer. The purpose of this study was to investigate socioeconomic and lifestyle factors associated with HPV infection in pregnant women in Beijing, China. METHODS: An age matched case-control study designed with 66 women as the case group (HPV positive) and 132 women as the control group (HPV negative) was carried out in two hospitals in Beijing. Socioeconomic and lifestyle factors were obtained using a standard questionnaire. Cervical cells from study subjects were collected for HPV detection. An unconditional logistic regression model with backward stepwise selection was performed to predict the odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) for the significant factors associated with HPV infection. RESULTS: The analyses of present data show that alcohol consumption during pregnancy was the strongest significant factor (OR = 3.35, 95% CI = 1.40–8.03, p = 0.007) when comparing the case (HPV positive) group with the control (HPV negative) group. There were no statistical differences observed in any of the socioeconomic factors when comparing the case and control groups. CONCLUSION: The results of this study may help to prevent HPV infection in China by providing evidence to support improving the national policy on alcohol restriction and introducing public health interventions, especially for pregnant women in Beijing.