Background:
PENS Houston is an innovative website designed by the Houston Health Department to aid in STD partner elicitation. Some clients feel the traditional face to face interview format with a Disease Intervention Specialist (DIS) is intrusive. These clients are also reluctant to disclose their partner(s)' identity(s) and their risk behaviors. Online partner elicitation service is an innovative way to counter these concerns while still fulfilling surveillance and prevention activities. STD clinical data has shown that clients are using the internet as a means of meeting potential sexual contacts (HDHHS). It is speculated that clients who use the internet for this purpose would be inclined to complete an online interview. PENS Houston provides a model for progressive data collection.

Objective:
PENS Houston is to meet certain challenges of partner elicitation and notification via a website based interview and to provide STD educational material.

Method:
Various developmental and planning committees were involved in the construction of PENS Houston. Logic modeling, focus groups collaborations with the community and various divisions with in the health department were apart of the development of this website.


Result:
Website is completely developed; deployed to the World Wide Web. Currently it is in a pilot phase for testing and evaluating its interview component and educational materials.

Conclusion:
To develop a web-based anonymous interviewing mechanism that could provide DIS with a tool to reach a subset of the population who may not be responsive to traditional methods of partner elicitation and notification or who may not be comfortable disclosing risk behavior(s) or partner(s) identity(s) in a face to face interview, Houston developed PENS Houston.


Implications:
This unconventional interview process will allow (DIS) to reach more clients utilizing a less traditional avenue of intervention and prevention. An online interview process will allow Houston to gather data on a subset of the population; facilitating research.