Confidential social network referrals for HIV testing (CONSORT)
The following grant was awarded by, is supported by, is administered by or is in partnership with the Fogarty International Center at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Funding Fogarty Program
Mobile Health (mHealth)
Project Information in NIH RePORTER
Confidential social network referrals for HIV testing (CONSORT)
Principal Institution
University of South Carolina at Columbia
Principal Investigator(s) (PI)
Ostermann, Jan; Njau, Bernard; Thielman, Nathan M.
Project Contact Information
Email:
jan.ostermann@gmail.com
Year(s) Awarded
2022–2024
Country
Tanzania
Project Description
HIV testing remains the critical first step in achieving the 95-95-95 goals for HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention (95% of people living with HIV knowing their HIV status; 95% of people who know their status on treatment; and 95% of people on treatment with suppressed viral loads.). Yet, testing rates are plateauing and more cost-effective strategies are needed to test higher-risk populations.
This project aims to leverage the ubiquity of mobile phones and the reach of social networks to evaluate the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of a novel mobile health (mHealth) intervention, Confidential Social Network Referrals for HIV Testing (CONSORT), for "nudging" high-risk populations to test for HIV. The autonomous, open-source, SMS-based approach can be scaled at minimal cost, is readily extensible to smartphone technologies and social media contexts, and holds significant potential to improve uptake of HIV testing and broadly shift paradigms for engaging social networks to change health-related behaviors.
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