Building Demand for Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Vaccination in India: A Review of the Behavioural and Social Drivers of Parental and Community Acceptance

India launched its National HPV Vaccination Campaign in February 2026, offering free, voluntary, singledose vaccination to 14-year-old girls with parental consent.By September 2026, more than 80 lakh doses had been administered against an estimated annual cohort of about 1.2 crore girls, with wide variation across states.Because uptake depends on parental decisions, understanding what drives acceptance is now a programme priority rather than an academic question.This narrative review synthesises Indian evidence on parental and community acceptance of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination, identified through a structured PubMed search and organised by the World Health Organization (WHO) Behavioural and Social Drivers (BeSD) framework, and considers how the shift to a free, nationally endorsed, single-dose programme changes the relevance of earlier findings.Indian studies consistently report low awareness, fears about safety and infertility, and concerns that the vaccine may encourage early sexual activity.Decisions are shaped by the wider family, with fathers and elders often having the final say, and by the recommendations of doctors and frontline workers.Most studies measure stated willingness rather than actual vaccination, and the evidence is concentrated in a few southern districts.Before 2026, cost was a dominant practical barrier; with free provision, the remaining practical barriers are mostly access, consent processes, and reaching girls outside school.The national campaign removes the cost barrier but not the belief-based and social barriers.Demand generation should prioritise equipping trusted health workers and teachers to recommend vaccination, engaging extended families and community leaders, pre-empting misinformation, and making consent and access easy.Standardised measurement of behavioural drivers, using tools such as the WHO BeSD surveys, should be built into campaign monitoring.