PMID- 25211262
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 20150511
LR  - 20181202
IS  - 1537-4521 (Electronic)
IS  - 0148-5717 (Linking)
VI  - 41
IP  - 10
DP  - 2014 Oct
TI  - Bringing HIV partner services into the age of social media and mobile 
      connectivity.
PG  - 631-6
LID - 10.1097/OLQ.0000000000000181 [doi]
AB  - BACKGROUND: A substantial proportion of recent sex partners named by persons with 
      sexually transmitted infections are not notified about their exposure despite 
      attempts by public health officials. Although text messaging (texting) and 
      Internet-based communications (dating Web sites, e-mail, etc) are used by a large 
      segment of the public for regular communications, these tools have been underused 
      for partner services (PS). METHODS: We augmented PS for HIV in New York City 
      using texting and Internet-based means to contact persons for whom traditional 
      information (landline telephone number, postal address) was unavailable. We 
      compared traditional PS (traditionalPS), Internet-based PS (IPS) in January 2011 
      to October 2012, and texting PS (txtPS) from January 2012 (when txtPS was 
      initiated) through October 2012 on outcomes of contact attempts, notification, 
      and HIV testing. RESULTS: From January 2011 to October 2012, of 3319 partners 
      elicited, 2604 and 275 partners had traditional and only Internet-based contact 
      information and were selected for traditionalPS and IPS, respectively. From 
      January to October 2012, 368 of 1569 partners had only texting-enabled cellphone 
      numbers and were selected for txtPS. The contact rate for txtPS (285/368 [77%]) 
      was significantly higher (P < 0.0001) than the contact rates for traditionalPS 
      (1803/2604 [69%]) and IPS (112/275 [41%]). There was a higher likelihood of 
      notifying contacted IPS (odds ratio, 2.1; 1.2-3.4) and txtPS (odds ratio, 2.4; 
      1.7-3.2) than traditionalPS partners (P </= 0.0001). However, among the notified 
      partners, traditionalPS partners were significantly (P < 0.0001) more likely than 
      txtPS or IPS partners to test for HIV after partner notification (69% vs 45% and 
      34%, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: Augmenting traditionalPS with txtPS and IPS 
      enabled notification of hundreds of previously untraceable partners and several 
      new HIV diagnoses.
FAU - Udeagu, Chi-Chi N
AU  - Udeagu CC
AD  - From the HIV Epidemiology and Field Services Program, New York City Department of 
      Health and Mental Hygiene, New York, NY.
FAU - Bocour, Angelica
AU  - Bocour A
FAU - Shah, Sharmila
AU  - Shah S
FAU - Ramos, Yasmin
AU  - Ramos Y
FAU - Gutierrez, Rodolfo
AU  - Gutierrez R
FAU - Shepard, Colin W
AU  - Shepard CW
LA  - eng
PT  - Journal Article
PT  - Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.
PL  - United States
TA  - Sex Transm Dis
JT  - Sexually transmitted diseases
JID - 7705941
SB  - IM
MH  - *Contact Tracing/statistics & numerical data/trends
MH  - *Electronic Mail
MH  - Female
MH  - HIV Seropositivity/*transmission
MH  - Humans
MH  - Internet
MH  - Male
MH  - New York City/epidemiology
MH  - Public Health
MH  - *Sexual Partners
MH  - *Social Media
MH  - *Text Messaging
EDAT- 2014/09/12 06:00
MHDA- 2015/05/12 06:00
CRDT- 2014/09/12 06:00
PHST- 2014/09/12 06:00 [entrez]
PHST- 2014/09/12 06:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2015/05/12 06:00 [medline]
AID - 00007435-201410000-00014 [pii]
AID - 10.1097/OLQ.0000000000000181 [doi]
PST - ppublish
SO  - Sex Transm Dis. 2014 Oct;41(10):631-6. doi: 10.1097/OLQ.0000000000000181.