Helping people with STDs contact partners by e-card

December 1 is World AIDS Day

Today marks the 20th anniversary of World AIDS Day and one new tool to help slow this epidemic is an Internet-based service called inSPOT. The service allows users to send anonymous e-mail notification to get tested for a sexually transmitted disease (STD). The free "e-cards" are notices from a previous sex partner with an STD stating that the recipient may have contracted the disease. The site was also designed as a way for people newly diagnosed with an STD to notify their partners to be tested.

The e-cards are direct and to the point and advise recipients to get checked out. Recipients can follow links to learn more about STDs, possible treatments, find clinics in their cities where they can be tested and help prevent the spread of the disease to others. 

 inSPOT started in San Francisco and was mainly to serve the gay community, however it has broadened its reach to include heterosexuals and has expanded to cities across North America. The nonprofit organization works to develop innovative sexual health resources through technology to provide awareness, education and prevention programs that improve people’s lives.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) currently estimates that approximately one in five persons living with HIV in the United States is unaware of his or her infection and may be unknowingly transmitting the virus to others.

Data reported in the journal PLoS Medicine shows the STD e-mail alerts are a success. More than 750 people visit the inSPOT site daily. Since 2004, the service has sent more than 49,500 e-cards. According to Mary McFarlane, a behavioral scientist with the Division of STD Prevention at the CDC, "The Internet is a good place to generate risk behavior, and if we want to do public health, and stop the spread of diseases, we need to be where those risk behaviors are, and introduce health into this venue."

These types of sites are most helpful when they include both accurate, accessible information and a community where users can interact and obtain personal support from both peers and professionals. Sending an e-card telling someone to get tested for STDs is fast becoming a public health courtesy.