Objective  To examine human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine-related awareness, vaccination willingness and its impact factors among women in Guangzhou city, Guangdong province.

  Methods  With convenient sampling, we conducted a voluntarily self-administrated anonymous survey among 4 360 women in Guangzhou city during 5 – 13 March, 2021. The information on participants′ health literacy, HPV vaccine-related awareness and vaccination willingness were collected using an online questionnaire.

  Results  Among the 3 933 participants with valid responses, 49.0% were assessed with qualified health literacy; 78.8% and 76.5% reported the awareness of HPV and HPV vaccine; 76.3% reported the willingness to have HPV vaccine vaccination. Of the 606 participants being unwilling to have HPV vaccine, 22.9% reported the consideration on high price of HPV vaccine; 21.1% reported the difficulty in booking an vaccination appointment; and 20.5% reported the concern about safety of HPV vaccine. The results of multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that the respondents with following characteristics were more likely to have HPV vaccination willingness: with sexual experience (odds ratio OR = 1.578, 95 confidence interval 95% CI: 1.293 – 1.926), having heard about HPV (OR = 1.376, 95% CI: 1.088 – 1.742), having heard about HPV vaccine (OR = 1.682, 95% CI: 1.335 – 2.118), and with a qualified health literacy (OR = 3.422, 95% CI: 2.754 – 4.254).

  Conclusion  Among the women in Guangzhou city, the willingness to have HPV vaccination is at a relatively high level and the willingness is mainly associated with previous sexual experience, awareness of HPV and HPV vaccine, and health literacy; the results suggest that promoting health education on HPV vaccination and formulating a mechanism for reasonable sharing of HPV vaccine cost may increase the coverage of HPV vaccination in the women.