Benefits of Mobile Phone Technologies for Driving Health Awareness and Behaviors

There are 270 million cell phone subscribers in the U.S., made up of consumers, patients, health advocates, etc. There are now more text messages sent each month in the U.S. then total mobile voice calls. The number of mobile Internet sites is rising by the month. Mobile phone health programs have the ability to influence behaviors of both health providers and consumers / patients. Mobile technologies allow us to reach individuals at time-sensitive moments and when individuals are mobile. Mobile phone programs can achieve many objectives: 1) Distribute information quickly and uniformly 2) Reach harder to contact demographic groups 3) Solicit immediate feedback from the field 4) Develop private and ongoing communications 5) Encourage compliance. We propose to present case studies of our mobile health work for the CDC, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and constituent organizations. These programs are based on advanced mobile databases. They can be integrated with existing health systems. All activity is tracked and results are reported in real time, if necessary. We will present learning from: 1) KNOW AIDS, mobile HIV testing center locator application for the CDC and the Kaiser Family Foundation. This program allows individuals to find local testing centers for HIV, all through SMS on their mobile phones. 2) GYT09, mobile STD testing center locator application for the CDC, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and Planned Parenthood. This program allows individuals to find local testing centers for STDs, all through SMS on their mobile phones. Additionally, this program incorporates a campaign structure to encourage greater participation and drive participants to include their friends. 3) RCAP, mobile SMS for rural AIDS conference. This program demonstrated the use of SMS for alerting constituents of key conference information and for surveying participants to elicit timely feedback.