title: Bringing HIV partner services into the age of social media and mobile connectivity.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: From the HIV Epidemiology and Field Services Program, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, New York, NY.
authors.forename: Chi-Chi N
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Udeagu
authors.forename: Angelica
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bocour
authors.forename: Sharmila
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Shah
authors.forename: Yasmin
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ramos
authors.forename: Rodolfo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Gutierrez
authors.forename: Colin W
authors.initials: CW
authors.lastname: Shepard
mesh_terms: D016358:Contact Tracing / Q000706:statistics & numerical data / Q000639:trends; D034742:Electronic Mail; D005260:Female; D006679:HIV Seropositivity / Q000635:transmission*; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D008297:Male; D009519:New York City / Q000453:epidemiology; D011634:Public Health; D012747:Sexual Partners; D061108:Social Media; D060145:Text Messaging