Health texting provides social media support

Using text messages to provide social support is being credited with increasing the likelihood that HIV patients adhere to their meds by 12 percent, according to a small health study in Kenya. The study, first presented at the recent mHealth Summit then published this week in The Lancet, randomized 538 HIV patients into two groups, one that received weekly texts asking "How are you?" and those who did not receive any supportive health texts. The texting group were instructed to reply within 48 hours by either confirming that they were doing well, or that they were having a problem. Those who reported a problem, or did not respond, were contacted by the clinic. Compliance with medication was measured by testing for viral load a year after the program started. The texting group was 12 percent more likely to have undetectable levels of HIV, which is an indicator that they were compliant with their medication.

Though there are several programs, including some targeting HIV patients, aimed at texting medication reminders, participants in this study report that the main value they received was the sense that "someone cares." The program was not designed to act as a reminder service, and in some cases provided information such as where dislocated individuals could find a doctor. Using these numbers, it was estimated that providing this social media support to all 300,000 Kenyans receiving HIV meds under US-funded programs would increase the number of zero-viral load measurements by 26,000. That's a lot of health improvement for texting five letters ("Mambo" in Kiswahili means "How are you?"). Implementation is obviously more complicated than texting five letters, but the idea that such a simple deployment of a technology available to some 70% of the 22.5 million Kenyans over age 15 could provide such measurable health impact is stimulating.

This was a formal program run out of health facilities, but what about fully implementing the social media model and providing social support through a peer or family run program? And does this type of research suggest that our various modes of social media do indeed provide some of the same health benefits as face-to-face social interactions?

Fascinating stuff, and yet more evidence to suggest that mobile devices may be the premier platform for health care delivery, and innovative health solutions going forward.

Photo credit: The author