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Background: Sexual health education and access to clinical services are key components of STD prevention for youth. New mobile communication technologies offer unique opportunities to reach this population. In April 2009, we launched the ‘Hookup’, a statewide text-messaging service for youth providing weekly sexual health tips and information about local clinics offering free or low-cost STD testing and reproductive health services. It is the first statewide program of its kind.
Objectives: To implement and evaluate a text-message-based sexual health service for California youth.
Methods: To opt-in to weekly text messages, subscribers text the word 'hookup' to the short code 365247. Messages were developed by health educators based on issues identified in youth focus groups. Topics include STD prevention and screening, birth control, emergency contraception, sexual communication, domestic violence, and substance abuse. Each message contains a prompt to text the word 'clinic' plus a zip code to get clinic referrals, and a website link (www.teensource.org). Low-cost marketing methods included promotion via local health departments, youth-serving organizations, and press releases to local newspapers. ‘Hookup’-branded materials (e.g., removable tattoos and stickers) were developed for distribution to youth. Future evaluation plans include a text-message-based user survey and youth focus groups.
Results: From April to August 2009, 1466 unduplicated users subscribed to the service. Overall, 480 clinic requests (372 unduplicated) were received for 177 zip codes, translating to 25% of subscribers requesting clinic referrals within 39 counties.
Conclusions: Within its first five months, the ‘Hookup’ has effectively provided low-cost sexual health information to many users and has resulted in a high proportion of clinic referral requests across California.
Implications for Programs, Policy, and/or Research: The ‘Hookup’ is an excellent model of a low-cost program using health communication and mobile technology to facilitate youth access to sexual health information and services. The programmatic platform can be translated for adoption by other STD programs considering implementing text-based projects.