HPV immunisation statistics Scotland
School year 2023/2024

About this release

This release by Public Health Scotland (PHS) provides an annual update on human papillomavirus (HPV) immunisation coverage rates. Coverage rates are reported for males and females in their first, second, third and fourth years of secondary school (S1, S2, S3 and S4) in 2023/24.

Main points

• Coverage of one dose of HPV vaccine for S1 pupils decreased in 2023/24, with overall coverage rates of 71.5%, compared with 72.9% in 2022/23. This continues a long-term gradual decline in HPV coverage rates over the past 10 years.

A line chart showing the trend in HPV immunisation coverage rates from 2014/15 - 2023/24, for S1 pupils, split by sex. For further details see the accompanying text.

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Trend in coverage of HPV immunisation (single dose) by the end of school years 2014/15 to 2023/24 in Scotland

• Each year since the vaccine was first offered to males in 2019/20, male coverage has been lower than female coverage; in 2023/24, S1 female coverage was 74.4%, while male coverage was 68.7%, a difference of 5.7 percentage points. In S4, coverage was 88.7% and 84.1% in females and males, respectively, a difference of 4.6 percentage points.
• Pupils who do not take up the offer of vaccination in S1 are re-offered it in subsequent school years: in S2 pupils, an additional 5.5% of females and 6.7% of males took up the offer of vaccination in 2023/24, taking coverage rates to 81.8% and 76.4% respectively. Between S3 and S4, 85.2% of S3 pupils in 2022/23 had received a single dose, rising to 86.3% in S4 (2023/24), an increase of 1.1%.
• In each year cohort, pupils living in the most deprived quintiles had lower coverage of the HPV vaccine compared with pupils from the least deprived quintiles. These inequalities have worsened over time. In S4 pupils in 2019/20, there was a difference of 3.1 percentage points between the most and least deprived groups (91.1% vs 94.2%); by 2023/24, this was 12.7 percentage points (79.9% vs 92.6%).
• There is variation in vaccine coverage by ethnicity. For S1 pupils, coverage ranged from 62.2% in the Caribbean or Black ethnic group to 72.8% in the White ethnic group. However, both the lowest and highest overall coverage was found within the White ethnic group; Gypsy/Traveller ethnicity had the lowest vaccine coverage at 24.0%, whilst coverage was highest in Irish ethnicity at 82.4%
• S1 coverage was highest in accessible small towns and rural areas and lowest in remote and urban areas. For instance, S1 coverage in accessible small towns was 75.2%, while in very remote small towns HPV vaccine coverage was 63.2%.

Background

The school-based HPV immunisation programme aims to help protect everyone from developing HPV-related cancers (including cervical, anogenital and head and neck) later in life. The most common HPV-related cancer is cervical cancer.

The routine eligible cohorts for 2023/24 were S1 males and females. Some pupils from the 2023/24 eligible cohorts who were not immunised in the period reported, may have since been immunised, with the remainder expected to be offered the vaccine during school year 2024/25.

Further information for the HPV immunisation can be found online at NHS Inform: HPV.

Further information

The next release of this publication will be November 2025.