Major cities across the U.S. and Canada have recently launched text message-based sex education hotlines in an effort to stem teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Washington D.C., Chicago, San Francisco and Toronto each have automated text message services for frequently asked questions that provide teens with answers and information on local clinics.
The New York Times recently published a feature on a similar service in North Carolina called the Birds and the Bees Text Line, which is not automated, but staffed by nine professional texters with public health backgrounds. According to the report, many epidemiologists and public health experts believe sex education in the classroom is either ineffective or insufficient. North Carolina, which instructs schools to teach abstinence-only curricula, has the country's ninth highest teenage pregnancy rate.
"Technology reduces the shame and embarrassment," said Deb Levine, executive director of ISIS, a nonprofit organization that began many technology-based reproductive health programs. "It's the perceived privacy that people have when they're typing into a computer or a cellphone. And it's culturally appropriate for young people: they don't learn about this from adults lecturing them."
The North Carolina program is funded by a $5,000 grant for the cellphone line as well as advertising from the State Department of Health and Human services. Unlike the automated services, The Birds and the Bees Text Line offers one-on-one exchanges that are private, personal and anonymous, as well as outside the purview of parents.
While issues of privacy and security will be a constant concern for those deploying mobile health solutions, it's clear that in some cases and for some demographic groups, the mobile phone may be the one and only place they can find privacy.
