‘It’s really complicated’: How Canadian university women students navigate gendered risk and human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine decision-making

In this article I examine how a group of female university students in Ontario, Canada navigated the notion of ‘gendered risk’ that underpins the current promotion of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine. In 2010, I interviewed 24 female university students from across the province of Ontario focussing on their experiences of making decisions about whether or not to have the HPV vaccine. I found that each student’s vaccine decision – whether it was to forgo vaccination, to wait to make a decision or to vaccinate – involved the consideration of notions of gender, negotiation of sexual health issues and management of the uncertainty of a relatively new vaccine. These considerations created a complex situation and produced a complex decision-making context, one that required the women to reflect on the ways in which they exercised their ethical agency. As a result, the women in my sample practiced identity-based vaccine decision-making that was driven by their developing sense of self as a young woman emerging into adulthood.