About the Authors

Derek C. Johnson

Affiliation Department of Epidemiology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America

Madhav P. Bhatta

Affiliation College of Public Health, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio, United States of America

Jennifer S. Smith

Affiliation Department of Epidemiology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States of America

Mirjam-Colette Kempf

Affiliations School of Nursing, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America, Department of Health Behavior, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America

Thomas R. Broker

Affiliation Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America

Sten H. Vermund

Affiliation Vanderbilt University, Institute for Global Health, Nashville, Tennessee, United States of America

Eric Chamot

Affiliation Department of Epidemiology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America

Shilu Aryal

Affiliation Nepal Family Health Division, Kathmandu, Nepal

Pema Lhaki

Affiliation Nepal Fertility Care Center, Kathmandu, Nepal

Sadeep Shrestha

sshrestha@uab.edu

Affiliation Department of Epidemiology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America

Competing Interests

Jennifer S. Smith has received research grants, served on paid advisory boards, and/or been a paid speaker for Hologic/Gen-Probe, BD Diagnostics, and QIAGEN over the past five years. Hologic/Gen-Probe has provided APTIMA® Cervical Specimen Collection and Transport and ThinPrep PreservCyt medium for this study. Also, Dr. Sten H Vermund, a co-author in the manuscript, is a PLoS ONE Editorial Board member. This does not alter the authors’ adherence to PLoS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: SS PL. Performed the experiments: DCJ PL SS. Analyzed the data: DCJ MPB JSS SS. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: SA PL SS. Wrote the paper: DCJ MPB EC MCK SS. Manuscript and discussion of results and interpretation: TRB SHV JSS SS.