Story Photos
 Hilary Gillette-Walch, Cowlitz County's epidemiologist, looks at the health department's new MySpace page about STDs during a recent presentation. Photo by Roger Werth / The Daily News
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Health department turns to MySpace to promote STD education
Monday, January 14, 2008 7:47 AM PST
By Barbara LaBoe
Printable version
E-mail this articleSaying they have to go where the kids are, the Cowlitz County Health Department now has its own MySpace page to help reach the increasingly younger residents infected with gonorrhea.
The page, named sexincowlitz, is designed to spread information about sexually transmitted diseases as well as allow the county's teens and young adults to ask anonymous questions of health professionals. It's an experiment, but officials said that in the midst of a three-year gonorrhea outbreak it only makes sense to try every available avenue.
In addition, 20 percent of the county's 2007 gonorrhea cases were in people age 13-19 and another 31 percent were among young adults ages 20-24. Those are the very age groups who use the free, Web-based social networking sites for all aspects of their lives and have made MySpace the third most popular website in the U.S., according to Alexa Internet ranking site.
"This is just a more creative way (to get information out there)," said Dr. Mimi Fields, the county's health officer. "Putting posters in bar bathrooms isn't the answer anymore."
The county's page, http://www.myspace.com/sexincowlitz, is still a work in progress but already has local STD statistics, testing locations, a commercial about the importance of safe sex and several "friends" who have linked to the page. Designed for teens and young adults, it's also frank about its purpose and sex, including a background of multicolored condoms, a dancing condom graphic and the logo "You can play, just be safe."
Initially, the county's gonorrhea outbreak was found mostly in adults in their 30s and late 20s. In the past year, though, it's migrated down to the younger age groups as well, said epidemiologist Hilary Gillette-Walch. That made the MySpace approach, which is free and takes minimal staff effort to maintain, a natural next step, she said.
"And the very exciting thing is that this is of the current age and is aimed at an age group we know uses MySpace," said Fields, adding the information is beneficial to whatever age groups accesses it.
It's also considered a "best practice" by federal officials to use the Internet to do outreach and health education -- particularly to reach younger populations, Gillette-Walch said.
The hope is that young people will add the county site to their friends list and check it regularly for updates and information. County workers also plan to use the bulletin feature to send out mass messages about free HIV testing days and other events. And, like-minded groups can link to the page, giving visitors other sites to check out.
"It's always nice to know that there are others out there that are helping the fight against HIV/AIDS," reads one message on the site, from a similar page for a New Mexico-based group.
"AWESOME commercial," reads another message from a teenage relative of a health department worker. "That's what Teens need!"
The MySpace idea came about as health workers learned that more and more young people are using such networking sites to meet people for sex. Initially, local surveys didn't find the same results, but workers discovered that was because they were asking about using the Internet and younger patients didn't equate the Internet with sites like MySpace, Gillette-Walch said.
The six-month MySpace experiment was approved by county commissioners this summer. The plan is to branch out to other networking sites, such as Facebook, as time and response allows.
Fields said she heard a comment recently that the commissioners and county were brave to try such a new approach, but to Fields it's a natural progression in the STD campaign.
"I don't consider it bold at all," she said. "I do find it highly responsive and highly responsible to be trying any and all things to get the message out to people."
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