Texting for sex(info)

Posted by on April 15, 2008 
Filed Under In the news

Last week we discussed the state of sexuality education in the U.S. and elsewhere, and we examined some of the evidence that more pragmatic approaches to sex ed are associated with lower rates of unwanted pregnancies, abortions, and sexually transmitted infections. We also saw that most Americans think young teens should have access to reliable information about all aspects of sexuality.

In a related development, last month’s American Journal of Public Health included a brief report about SEXINFO, a sexual health text messaging service developed by Internet Sexuality Information Services, Inc., in partnership with the San Francisco Department of Public Health.

The service was developed as a response to rising gonorrhea rates among African American youth in San Francisco. In developing the service, ISIS and the health department sought input from young people ages 15-19 to ensure that it was relevant to the groups they were trying to reach. So far, SEXINFO has exceeded expectations. According to the report in AJPH, there were more than 4,500 inquiries in the first 25 weeks of the service. More than half of those inquiries led to follow-up information and referrals. The top three inquiries, according to the developers, were (1) “what 2 do if ur condom broke,” (2) “2 find out about STDs,” and (3) “if u think ur pregnant.”

The service is currently available only in the San Francisco area, but it wouldn’t be difficult to replicate elsewhere in the U.S. How valuable do you think it would be to have access to such a service where you live? Do you think young people would use it? Why or why not?

Comments

2 Responses to “Texting for sex(info)”

  1. Charkivia Lovett on August 28th, 2008 5:54 pm

    Teenagers across the world have differnt backgrounds and attitudes about sexual culture and thus having a place where you can ask questions and receive a valuable response so the outcome of a situation will come out better helps improve situations like unwanted pregancies and STI, and other issues. To have a service where i had resided in miami would be increase sexual knowledge and decrease STI and unwanted preagancies. the reason things like this is happening because a lot of people don’t have the sexual knowledge that other have. I defenitely think people would use it and it would reduce HIV/AIDS infections worldwide!

  2. Ariel Deray on September 2nd, 2008 10:49 am

    There is a vast amount of knowledge available about sex and STD’s to teenagers and even adults. The problem is that they don’t take the time or effort to seek it out, or to even pay any attention to it. This text messaging program is a step towards knowledge and is of course proactive, but what makes this different then reading it in a text book or online?
    Most students who recieve text messages that aren’t from a friend just dismiss them and delete them anyway. I understand this program is trying to keep up with the growing technological age, but im not so sure this idea is effective.