Cervical Cancer Elimination Will Require United States Leadership in Prevention and Control Both at Home and Abroad

March 31, 2021

TogetHER has convened a group of 18 organizations to highlight contributions to national and global cervical cancer prevention and control by the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and to call for new commitments to promote HPV vaccination and cervical screening and treatment.

Members and partners of TogetHER for Health recommend the following actions from new HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra and his colleagues:

  1. Recommit the United States Government to safeguarding access to women’s healthcare, including cervical cancer
    screening;
  2. Commit the United States to achieving the targets set under the WHO Elimination Strategy, most notably by working to increase HPV vaccination rates nationally from the current 70% to 90%;
  3. Roll back efforts to weaken the Affordable Care Act, while adding cervical cancer prevention services such as diagnostic testing and colposcopy to the Affordable Care Acts essential health benefits mandate;
  4. Sustain or increase investments in the Go Further program under PEPFAR to screen and treat women living with HIV for cervical cancer using HPV testing as the primary screening method;
  5. Commit to ensuring that cervical cancer vaccination, screening, and treatment services are components of quality, rights-based, client-centered, integrated sexual and reproductive healthcare alongside contraceptive access and prevention, testing, and treatment for HIV, and other sexually transmitted infections; and
  6. Provide U.S. Government support for NIH/NCI and CDC efforts necessary to improve and expand tools and strategies for cervical cancer control.

We look forward to working with HHS leadership to make cervical cancer elimination a reality. Click here to view the letter.

• TogetHER for Health
• American Cancer Society
• Basic Health International
• PATH
• Pathfinder International
• Population Services International
• Project Concern International, a Global Communities Partner
• AVAC
• Engender Health
• Global Focus on Cancer
• Go Doc Go
• Grounds for Health
• Haiti sans Cervical Cancer (HsCC)
• Human Rights Watch
• John Snow, Inc.
• Laura Crandall Brown Foundation
• The Lily Project
• MSI Reproductive Choices

Photo credit: “American Flags” by Dricker94 is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0