The role of mobile applications in STI prevention.

This morning I watched a presentation by Joshua Rosenberger (USA).Examining the role of STI prevention among MSM using mobile applications.

He was discussing a study that was conducted in a American city with a population of about 1 million people. Looking at how many MSM that logged into a particulat Geospactial networking app within a 24 hour period.

And where these men lived in relation to the Sexual health and HIV services that were available in the city. 

In a 24 hour period 5000 men logged into the Application. Most of the men being of white or Hispanic background and living in the inner city and downtown area. There was a population of African-American background that lived further on the outskirts of the city. The peak time for log on being 2000 through till 2300.

Using this information and location of the men that logged in they could see the centres for access (their clinics were all located in the city area). Which was great for the small population of white men that lived in that area. But not so for the rest of the population. Especially there most at risk men of African-American background. 

The clinic hours extended until 1730 at the latest. So how could they use this information for health promotion and to allow for better access to the rest of the population at greatest risk for STI/HIV prevention and education?

My Take HOME MESSAGE:

Harnessing the use of mobile application services is a great way to ascertain where the target population are living and using the platforms for advertising "Health Promotion".

In Australia and especially in NSW we have embraced Mobile Social Applications such as GRINDR to deliver Health promotion activites. But can we better utilise the data to look at where we need to direct outreach services to capture the proportion of the population that do not live in "The bubble" of the innner city - where a lot of our Sexual Health and HIV services are located.