Burnside wv. Lee B. It all started earlier this year, when Dr. Smith learned through a West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources public health disease investigator that some people diagnosed with syphilis in Morgantown had anonymous sexual encounters thanks to meeting partners through dating apps.
Smith said. MCHD contacted several dating apps; only Grindr agreed to work with the health department free of cost to alert their customers to this health concern. The result was a message that was delivered to a very targeted audience, the exact one for whom the information was relevant.
A public service announcement went live on April 24, to anyone who opened the Grindr app within a mile radius of Morgantown. Initial interest exceeded what Dr. Smith had anticipated. In the first nine hours, 5, unique individuals saw the message. The PSA ran weekly for the first month, and the tally after that period of time was 21, unique individuals altogether who had seen the message. A poster created by Dr. As a result, Dr. Smith was asked to recount the story in a blog and in a podcast, both posted for members of NACCHO, which includes 2, health departments across the nation.
Using social media and other technology to educate specific populations has piqued the interest not only of public health officials but also a few national media outlets. The idea to ask a dating app to partner with MCHD to display a public service announcement goes back about a decade, when Dr. Smith was attending a global health conference in Washington, D. That idea remained with Dr. Smith until he had a chance to apply it to the syphilis outbreak last spring that has been mostly occurring among the population of men who have sex with men MSM.
Skip to content.
