Safeteens Answers!: Harnessing Teens' Information-Seeking Practices to Deliver Accurate Health Education

Background:  Adolescent health warmlines are not uncommon in the United States, especially in the field of adolescent reproductive health. By allowing teens to call/message health educators, these resources provide valuable, medically accurate information to teens who may not otherwise have access such information or the ability to discern accurate from unreliable sources. Despite the availability of these warmlines, many teens still access inaccurate health information; one study found up to 46% of websites popular among teens addressing contraception contained inaccurate information.

Program background:  Maternal and Family Health Services (MFHS) launched its adolescent reproductive health textline, SafeTeens Answers!, in June 2015. While previous warmlines in the U.S. have been chiefly promoted through existing community partnerships such as schools, SafeTeens Answers! is the first textline to be promoted almost exclusively through internet marketing. As such, MFHS is able to harness popular online practices such as Googling health questions and forum-posting. By delivering advertisements to teens Googling questions via Google AdWords, for example, MFHS disrupts unreliable information-seeking practices to change teens' information-seeking behavior to a more reliable practice: conversing with health professionals. In so doing, SafeTeens Answers!, promotes new behaviors in times of uncertainty, and thus, following behavior-change theories, is better equipped than other campaigns to change behavior.

Evaluation Methods and Results:  SafeTeens Answers! proved to be remarkably popular among teens targeted through advertising. Out of thirteen similar textlines operated throughout the U.S., SafeTeens Answers!, grew more quickly than any of them and consistently ranks among the top two textlines (of the fourteen) in terms of traffic. Teens targeted by the campaign sought and benefited from more information on the service over 9,000 times — double the industry benchmark for similar campaigns. The most popular times for texting are 10-11 p.m.

Conclusions: 

We believe the popularity of SafeTeens Answers! stems from its innovative marketing campaign that disrupts teens current information-seeking practices. The popularity of late-night hours for this service demonstrates, we believe, teens inclination to seek answers during times of uncertainty -- times that rarely correspond to the school-day. Furthermore, given the amount of relationship-building for reproductive health professionals to enter one school, the internet marketing-centered model forged by MFHS is a far more efficient use of resources.

Implications for research and/or practice:  Because this model is scalable and becomes more cost-effective with larger ad-buys, statewide/regional warmline campaigns should seek to replicate its results, not only because this model is more cost-effective than previous models, but also because it is more effective: By harnessing and disrupting current popular but unreliable information-seeking practices, SafeTeens Answers! is, following behavior-change theory, better equipped than other campaigns to change behavior. Furthermore, because this service is promoted to teens online, it has implications across the nation for achieving health equity by reaching dispersed at-risk teens, such as rural LGBTQ youth, and achieving health equity by reaching teens in areas currently hostile to comprehensive sex education. Lastly, while the campaign’s focus groups demonstrate teens value the personalized advice or real health professionals, further research is required to see if such personalization is more likely to lead to behavior change.