Recent public service announcement campaigns, such as the “One Less” television commercials aimed at encouraging women to get an human papillomavirus vaccines to help avoid cervical cancer, have brought women’s health issues – many of which were often ignored – into the spotlight.

Harvard University Health Services chief of medicine Soheyla Gharib said young women are concerned about and interested in new threats to their health.

“I think that college-age women are well-educated about sexual health,” she said. “Many people go to reliable websites, plus they read the lay literature, which is quite informative,” she said in an email.

Gharib cited a study that reported 26 percent of women entering college were HPV positive. Of those who tested negative, nearly half — 46 percent — tested positive shortly after, she said.

Gharib said women should take notice.

“Most of these infections are short-lived and are cleared by the body,” she said.

In many cases, though, the virus can lead to cervical cancer. The American Cancer Institute projected more than 11,000 women will develop cervical cancer in 2007. Around 70 percent of those cases will develop from HPV.

Many in the health profession are putting their faith in a new vaccine designed to prevent cervical cancer developed from HPV.

Gardisil, which runs the “One Less” commercials, created a new three-injection HPV vaccine aimed to prevent cervical cancer.

When a female becomes infected with certain types of HPV, abnormal cells can develop in the lining of the cervix. If not discovered early and treated, these abnormal cells can become cervical precancers and then cancer.

Gharib said the new vaccine is effective, though it only produces antibodies against two cancer-causing strains of HPV. Those two strains, however, account for 70 percent of developed cervical cancers, she said.

In a study of 8,500 girls, Gharib said the group receiving the vaccination did not develop cervical precancers, while 53 in the non-vaccinated group developed them.

In a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention testimony before Congress in 2004, CDC Director Julia Gerberding cited statistics that estimated 50 percent of sexually active men and women will acquire a genital HPV infection at some point in their lives.

The CDC’s website states 80 percent of women will acquire HPV by age 50, according to a 2000 study published in the Journal of Epidemiology.

“It is good for young women to be informed,” said Elizabeth Gardner, assistant professor at Harvard Medical and Gynecologic Oncologist.