Public Health in the Rockies 2026

Background: Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) is a gram negative bacterium that thrives in acid rich environments like the stomach. Once inside a host's stomach, it causes a chronic infection that predisposes the host to gastrointestinal illness including gastric cancers (Vakil, 2025). Recognizing routes of transmission of H. pylori and employing interventions to prevent transmission is important for gastric cancer prevention.

Purpose: The purpose of this presentation is to summarize routes of transmission of H. pylori and to discuss the public health strategies that can be used to reduce its transmission.

Methods: A scoping literature review was conducted using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses-Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) process. Search engines included Academic Search Complete, Medline, and Cummulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature - Complete (CINAHL Complete). Inclusion criteria included peer reviewed articles published in the past five years, written in English, available in full text, and focused on routes of transmission. Articles were reviewed first with an abstract review and then a full text review. A literature matrix was developed and articles were synthesized to identify transmission routes.

Results: Results suggest that there are five primary routes: fecal-oral, oral-oral, gastric-oral, anal-oral, and genital-oral. Exposures result from person-to-person, animal-to-human, foodborne, and occupational exposures. We describe evidence-based strategies to decrease H. pylori transmissions.

Implications: Decreasing H. pylori transmission has the possibility to reduce gastrointestinal illnesses, including gastric cancer, caused by H. pylori infection. Public health professionals have the capacity to employ strategies to decrease H. pylori infections, thereby improving the health among at-risk populatioins.