Are MSM Willing to SMS for HIV Prevention?

Abstract

Text messaging is a potential HIV-prevention tool for men who have sex with men (MSM), specifically young MSM and MSM of color. To determine the willingness of MSM to receive text messages as part of an HIV-prevention intervention, we administered an online survey to MSM recruited from MySpace.com, which included questions about mobile phone ownership and willingness to participate in a future text message-based HIV research study. Of participants, 85% (n = 5,378) reported owning a mobile phone and 49% (n = 2,483) of mobile phone owners reported being willing to receive text messages in a future HIV research study. Black and Hispanic men were more willing than White non-Hispanic men to receive text messages. Men with a college degree were less willing to receive texts than men with a high school level of education, and men >22 years old were less likely to be willing to receive texts than those younger than 22 years of age. The authors' findings demonstrate that willingness to receive text messages as part of an HIV research study is moderate, and mirrors patterns of text message use in age and race. Variations in willingness should be taken into account when designing and implementing future interventions.

Youth, Technology, and HIV: Recent Advances and Future Directions

“…Among 6329 MSM ages 19 to 27 surveyed online, 49% of those who owned mobile phones were willing to receive text messages for HIV prevention (45). Important differences were noted by race/ethnicity (Black and Hispanic men more willing than White men), and education level and age (higher education and older age men less willing) (45).…”

Reducing HIV Vulnerability Through a Multilevel Life Skills Intervention for Adolescent Men (The iREACH Project): Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial (Preprint)

“…AMSM who consent will submit a cell phone number and their cell phone carrier as part of the registration process, an email and/or SMS containing a code will be immediately sent to verify the user. This process has been found to be acceptable among adolescents 15 and MSM 16,17 populations in previous studies. After verification, participants will be asked to provide their contact information, including an email address, a cell phone number, social media handles, and a mailing address, and will be asked to provide a nickname or name of choice to be referred to throughout the study.…”

“…Eligibility Criteria: Eligible individuals must: (1) have been assigned a male sex at birth and identify as male at the time of enrollment into the study (cis-gender male); (2) be between the ages of [13][14][15][16][17][18] (inclusive); (3) speak and read English; (4) report same-sex attractions and/or behaviors; (5) have access to the internet, (6) live in one of the zip codes at least partially contained in the 109 counties included in the four regions selected for this trial, and (7) self-report as HIV-negative at time of enrollment.…”

“…If still unresponsive, other available contact information (e.g., phone call) will be used. Each contact is logged in an electronic retention system (SMART) developed by Emory University 16,17,50 . The SMART system also maintains electronic lists of participants' retention status, and automatically creates notification lists for retention staff to ensure that a systematic process is followed and carefully documented for retention.…”

“…We employ the term AMSM to refer to cis-gender males aged [13][14][15][16][17][18] who may express same-sex attractions and/or engage in same-sex behaviors, yet may or may not identify as gay, bisexual, queer and/or questioning (GBQQ). AMSM also represent a younger age range than YMSM, which typically includes ages up to 24 years.…”