Does HPV Affect African American Women Differently? WABE 90.1 FM, Thursday, April 5, 2012, Atlanta, Georgia. Kevin Ault, an HPV expert at Emory University and Grady Hospital, says there’s a bigger issue that has less to do with race. “We know that everybody that’s sexually active is at risk for HPV, so that doesn’t vary from demographic to demographic,” he says. But what does vary is access to health services like pap smears. He says the issue is especially a problem in Atlanta, where Fulton County’s rates for cervical cancer are twice the national average.