Sex Education goes for IT

IT has been integrated into public health efforts more extensively than you might imagine- especially in the field of sexual health education. I was first drawn to the sheer vastness of efforts in this area when I, along with colleagues from The Women's Collective, presented SisterAct: Utilizing Technology to Address Challenges to Intergenerational Communication about Sexual Health, at the 2009 Sex::Tech Conference in San Fransisco. We introduced, with some enthusiasm, the various innovations we had incorporated into our curriculum to ease the process of intergenerational communication about sexual health issues, usually a tabooed subject among African American women and girls- social networking sites, blogs, educational movie clips, and personal video journals as a means for our clients to open up necessary communication channels, otherwise hindered by stigma and fear.

But it doesn't stop where we started-there are a number of examples of how IT has become the foundation for sexual health education. The Text4Baby Campaign allows low-income, expectant mothers in the US to receive free text messages timed with their due dates, about nutrition, immunization, birth defect prevention and a range of other educational topics. Businesses such as L'oreal have incorporated media efforts such as the I Am Worth It Campaign their corporate social responsibility portfolios, encouraging young women to be proud of their womanhood, and maintain high-self esteem in their sexual relationships. In South Africa and Kenya, an SMS test messaging program for HIV positive individuals has allowed people to overcome the problems of an overburdened health system and limited access to doctors- One World in Kenya and Cell Life in South Africa, provide both mass-messaging preventative education services, and allow HIV positive users to text their questions and concerns to doctors available to assist immediately.


So that's right. I was as shocked as you might be at the idea of conferences recurring annually, dedicated solely to the integration of information technology and sexual health education. But given these impressive innovations it is clear that there is a promising future in the overlay of IT and health education.