Text Messaging for HIV Appointment and Medication Reminders - Part II

This week, we return to our series on using text messaging for HIV appointment and medication reminders. We are dedicating four posts to this topic, which often comes up in conversations between Miguel Gomez, AIDS.gov's Director, and AIDS service providers. We recently discussed some of the reasons why an AIDS service organization might want to use text messaging. This week we're focusing on the how. In weeks to come we'll be addressing costs and privacy.

Text Messaging for HIV Appointment and Medication Reminders - Part I

We’ve discussed some of the uses of text messaging (also known as Short Messaging Service , or SMS) for HIV prevention and testing in previous posts (“R U Texting?” and “Texting 4 Health”). For the next few posts we’ll concentrate on using text messages for appointment and medication reminders. More and more clients are choosing to receive reminders about their upcoming visits or medications via text messages (limited to 140 characters) which are delivered to their mobile phones.

Justin Goforth,
Whitman-Walker Clinic

This week we’ll address some of the reasons why your organization or clinic might want to consider using texting reminders. In the following weeks, we’ll talk about how it’s done, the costs, and privacy considerations.

International AIDS Conference: New Media and the AIDS Community - Some Good News

Last week, we "twittered" from the International AIDS Conference (IAC) , and we planned to talk about that this week. We were struck, however, by our conversations on new media with IAC delegates and we decided to write about what we learned at the conference instead. (Stay tuned for more on Twitter soon!)

From the plenary on the future of the global pandemic to AIDS.gov's conversations with a cross-section of the 23,000+ IAC delegates in Mexico City, the topic of new media kept popping up. In that plenary session, Dr. Peter Piot , director of UNAIDS (and one of the leading voices in developing HIV/AIDS policy worldwide), acknowledged the importance of new media in meeting the challenge of HIV/AIDS. Dr. Piot explicitly mentioned Facebook and text messaging as important tools in carrying messages about HIV/AIDS--but he was one of the few who did.

20 students. 6 universities. 8 short videos. 1 cause. National HIV Testing Day Personal Public Service Announcements

Dr. Kevin Fenton, Director of the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention , with a PPSA participant

To help get the word out about National HIV Testing Day (June 27), the CDC and the University of Georgia’s New Media Institute collaborated on an innovative new media project. More than 20 students from six universities and five AIDS organizations hit the streets with video cameras this April to produce eight short video messages encouraging young people to be tested for HIV.

To learn more about this project, we spoke with Dr. Scott Shamp , a professor at the University of Georgia and the director of the New Media Institute , and with our CDC colleague Jackie Rosenthal.

Texting 4 Health (Part 2 of "R U Texting?")

Today's post is a follow-up to our initial post on text messaging (also known as "texting"). We're straying from our usual format, in order to share with you some highlights from last week's Texting4Health Conference at Stanford University .

Two members of the AIDS.gov team went to Texting4Health to learn from, and talk with, some of the country's leading experts in health, behavior change, and mobile technology, who are using texting in health. The conference brought together researchers, public health professionals, nonprofits, government, foundations, businesses, and more.