Social Support Via Peer-to-Peer Text Messaging for Low-Income South African Women with Diabetes

Objective: Demonstrate the utility of text messaging to provide peer-to-peer support for low-income South African women

Methods:The UCLA Semel Institute, with a grant from Peers for Progress foundation, is piloting a novel cell phone application enabling peer support at a South African clinic.  The program engages low-income women with diabetes through text messaging.  Women answer questions about their health and habits with responses routed through a centralized server and then passed to each woman’s identified support partner as a text message

Results:The intervention has been created and undergone extensive preclinical testing.  It will be deployed in the field during Q1 2010. The solution encourages health promoting behaviors through prompts and has the potential to improve peer support by automatically updating and connecting peers.  The solution is low-cost and able to reach the majority of people with basic cell phones with text message capability.  Staff can easily track the population through the central reporting and intervene effectively where needed. 

Conclusion:Peer-to-peer text messaging may be a low cost and scalable method helping patients with diabetes get the support they need.