Julie Gazmararian PhD is Associate Professor of Epidemiology at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. She has over 25 years of experience conducting public health research in both the public and private sector. Her research focuses on a range of topics including reproductive health, children’s health, health promotion, and health literacy.

Dr. Gazmararian has published many articles on health literacy topics including medication refill adherence and use of preventive services. Now she is evaluating an innovative project called “Text4Baby” that brings together text messaging with prenatal/newborn care.

In this podcast, she talks with Helen Osborne about:

• How “Text4Baby” is being used to teach about prenatal and newborn care.
• Why text messaging is a communication tool to consider now.
• What researchers are learning early in the evaluation process.
• Recommendations for using text messaging in your practice.

More Ways to Learn:

• Text4Baby. Available for free at http://text4baby.org
• Osborne H. “In Other Words…Using text messages to improve medication adherence,” On Call magazine. September 18, 2008. Available athttp://www.healthliteracy.com/article.asp?PageID=7987
• Archer N, Cocosila M, Haynes RB, Yuan Y. “Can wireless text messaging improve adherence to preventive activities? Results of a randomised controlled trial.” International Journal of Medical Informatics. (2009). PubMed. Web. 28 Dec. 2009.
• Balas EA, Boren SA, Krishna S. “Healthcare via cell phones: a systematic review.” Journal of the American Telemedicine Association. (2009). PubMed. Web. 28 Dec. 2009.
• Chen WS, Leong KC, bLeong KW, Mastura I, Mimi O, Ng CJ, Phua KL, Sheikh MA, Teng CL, Zailinawati AH. “The use of text messaging to improve attendance in primary care: a randomized controlled trial.” Family Practice. (2006). PubMed. Web. 30 Dec. 2009.
• Fry JP, Neff RA. “Periodic prompts and reminders in health promotion and health behavior interventions: systematic review.” Journal of Medical Internet Research. (2009). PubMed. Web. 28 Dec. 2009.
• Haller DM, Patton GC, Sanci LA, Sawyer SM. “Text message communication in primary care research: a randomized controlled trial.” Family Practice. (2009). PubMed. Web. 30 Dec. 2009.

1 Comment »

1. 

   I was super-pleased to listen to your podcast #57 on text messaging. I especially liked the sharp targeting, i.e. tailored messages for women in specific stages of their pregnancy.

   You may be interested in my experience with texting for large-scale hard-to-reach targets in developing countries, especially brief in-service messages to trained volunteer Community Health Workers who had received some basic training in reproductive health. In the past, the challenge of providing those trained CHWs with in-service updating was formidably expensive in large countries such India, Pakistan and Indonesia, because large numbers of CHWs had to be transported to central meeting places for, say, an introduction to Misoprostol. But in some parts of Uttar Pradesh I learned that the vast majority of CHWs used cell phones and could therefore receive and learn from well-constructed short text messages to large groups. The CHWs were being trained with the help of USAID projects implemented by The Futures Group and DKT International.

   Comment by John Davies, Doctor of Public Health — May 2, 2011 @ 7:30 am

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