Health News
2006-04-28
San Francisco
launches text message STD education campaign
Young people can
request STD information via text messaging on their cell
phones
T
The San Francisco
health department this week launched a new HIV and STD
prevention initiative that sends safer-sex messages via text
messaging to cell phones of city residents seeking
answers to sexual health questions, the San
Francisco Chronicle reports. The program,
modeled after a similar safer-sex campaign in London, is
aimed at people ages 12 to 24 and was launched in
response to rapidly rising STD rates among San
Francisco youth, health officials say.
Cell phone users
can send the text message “sexinfo” to one of
two telephone numbers set up by the health department,
and choose from a list of questions they’d like
to have answered. Messages address such issues as how
to handle pressure to have sex and what to do if a condom
breaks during sex, the Chronicle reports. Text
message responses are sent usually within one to two
minutes, health officials say. Most messages also
include a telephone number that recipients can call
for more information.
"We wanted to
design a program that would reach young people with the
technology they use most often," Jacqueline McCright, STD
services manager at the health department, told the
Chronicle of the reasons for launching the
program.
The program will
cost the health department about $2,500 per month to
operate. (The Advocate)
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