From crisis to capacity: Lessons learned from youth e-mentoring during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic and associated need for social isolation left in-person youth mentoring programs scrambling to keep mentees and mentors connected, and many programs turned to e-mentoring. To better understand the transition period and to inform e-mentoring practice in a post-COVID world, this study explored the experience of mentoring programs shifting to e-mentoring during the first year of the pandemic. Seven remote focus group discussions were conducted with twenty-three staff members from twenty U.S. youth mentoring organizations that used the iCouldBe e-mentoring platform during Spring/summer 2020 or Fall/Winter 2020-2021. Thematic content analysis was used to uncover insights from the data. E-mentoring was successful overall for keeping mentees and mentors in touch, especially for matches with a strong connection before the pandemic. Zoom and text messaging were the most used virtual communication methods. Programs faced many challenges but also experienced unexpected positives, including a strong interest in future e-mentoring implementation. Participants recommended that programs interested in e-mentoring start small and with intention; they also requested a central website with e-mentoring support and ways to connect with other programs and mentors. Although the literature on e-mentoring remains limited, this study contributes a picture of e-mentoring success even during a global crisis.

The hookup: collaborative evaluation of a youth sexual health program using text messaging technology.

BACKGROUND: The Hookup is a collaborative project reaching young people in California with valuable sexual and reproductive health information and linkage to local resources. Due to limited access to subscriber contact information, it has been a challenge to evaluate the program. OBJECTIVE: The aims of this study were to determine the feasibility of using text messaging (short message service, SMS) as an evaluation tool for an educational text message-based program and to evaluate the program itself. METHODS: All subscribers of The Hookup were sent four survey questions via SMS about age, gender, location, referral source and behavior change. An incentive was offered for completing the survey and an opt-out option was provided in the initial message. RESULTS: All existing subscribers of The Hookup (N=2477) received a request to complete the survey using the SMS application on their mobile phones. A total of 832 (33.6%) subscribers responded to the initial question and 481 (20%) answered all four questions. Of the responses, 85% were received in the first two hours of the initial request. Respondents who answered the question about behavior change, 90% reported having made some positive change since subscribing to Hookup, including getting tested for STDs and HIV. CONCLUSIONS: The survey methodology initiated a high response rate from The Hookup subscribers. The survey was able to provide data about subscribers in a short time period at minimal cost. The results show potential for using mobile SMS applications to evaluate SMS campaigns. The findings also support using SMS to provide young people with sexual health prevention messaging and linkage to health services.

Social media-delivered sexual health intervention: a cluster randomized controlled trial.

BACKGROUND: Youth are using social media regularly and represent a group facing substantial risk for sexually transmitted infection (STI). Although there is evidence that the Internet can be used effectively in supporting healthy sexual behavior, this has not yet extended to social networking sites. PURPOSE: To determine whether STI prevention messages delivered via Facebook are efficacious in preventing increases in sexual risk behavior at 2 and 6 months. DESIGN: Cluster RCT, October 2010-May 2011. SETTING/PARTICIPANTS: Individuals (seeds) recruited in multiple settings (online, via newspaper ads and face-to-face) were asked to recruit three friends, who in turn recruited additional friends, extending three waves from the seed. Seeds and waves of friends were considered networks and exposed to either the intervention or control condition. INTERVENTION: Exposure to Just/Us, a Facebook page developed with youth input, or to control content on 18-24 News, a Facebook page with current events for 2 months. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Condom use at last sex and proportion of sex acts protected by condoms. Repeated measures of nested data were used to model main effects of exposure to Just/Us and time by treatment interaction. RESULTS: A total of 1578 participants enrolled, with 14% Latino and 35% African-American; 75% of participants completed at least one study follow-up. Time by treatment effects were observed at 2 months for condom use (intervention 68% vs control 56%, p=0.04) and proportion of sex acts protected by condoms (intervention 63% vs control 57%, p=0.03) where intervention participation reduced the tendency for condom use to decrease over time. No effects were seen at 6 months. CONCLUSIONS: Social networking sites may be venues for efficacious health education interventions. More work is needed to understand what elements of social media are compelling, how network membership influences effects, and whether linking social media to clinical and social services can be beneficial. TRIAL REGISTRATION: This study is registered at www.clinicaltrials.govNCT00725959.

Increasing access to emergency contraception through online prescription requests.

OBJECTIVE: To describe a pilot program, Plan B Online Prescription Access, to provide easy access to prescriptions for emergency contraception via the Internet. STUDY DESIGN: We measured electronic prescriptions for Plan B (Duramed Pharmaceuticals, Cincinnati, Ohio) by month over time. Pharmacists faxed patient-generated prescriptions back to the Department of Public Health for confirmation. RESULTS: Despite no marketing, within the first 18 months of the program, 152 electronic prescriptions for Plan B were requested by 128 female San Francisco residents. Seventy-eight prescriptions were filled (51%) by pharmacists. CONCLUSION: If correctly marketed, online prescriptions for Plan B have the potential to be an effective means of increasing emergency contraception access in both urban and rural settings across the United States. Further user-acceptability studies are warranted.