Advancing Text Messaging for Health

Mobile technology and cell phones offer incredible opportunities to reach large segments of the U.S. population, including historically underserved populations, with important and potentially life-saving health information. In November 2009, HHS established the Text4Health Task Force to explore how to leverage the power of text messaging in particular to advance health. This Task Force explored best practices and lessons learned from existing health text messaging programs, including the Text4Baby program (www.text4baby.org), a public-private partnership led by a non-profit organization (the Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies coalition) that provides free health text messages to pregnant women and new mothers.

To spur further innovation in health text messaging, the Task Force made several recommendations. One of the main recommendations is for HHS researchers to help create health text message libraries based on the best available science and to make these libraries open access, publicly available, and downloadable and usable by anyone. In the spirit of open government, we hope that this provides developers and innovators with the raw material for all kinds of creative applications, programs and services that can help improve health...