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Peer Group Focused eHealth Strategies to Promote HIV Prevention, Testing, and Care Engagement

  • eHealth and HIV (J Simoni and B Guthrie, Section Editors)
  • Published:
Current HIV/AIDS Reports Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose of Review

Electronic communication platforms are increasingly used to support all steps of the HIV care cascade (an approach defined as eHealth). Most studies have employed individual-level approaches in which participants are connected with information, reminders, or a healthcare worker. Recent growth in use of social media platforms, which create digital communities, has created an opportunity to leverage virtual peer-to-peer connection to improve HIV prevention and care. In this article, we describe the current landscape of peer group eHealth interventions in the HIV field, based on a review of published literature, an online survey of unpublished ongoing work, and discussions with practitioners in the field in an in-person workshop.

Recent Findings

We identified 45 published articles and 12 ongoing projects meeting our inclusion criteria. Most reports were formative or observational; only three randomized evaluations of two interventions were reported. Studies indicated that use of peer group eHealth interventions is acceptable and has unique potential to influence health behaviors, but participants reported privacy concerns.

Summary

Evaluations of health outcomes of peer group eHealth interventions show promising data, but more rigorous evaluations are needed. Development of group eHealth interventions presents unique technological, practical, and ethical challenges. Intervention design must consider privacy and data sovereignty concerns, and respond to rapid changes in platform use. Innovative development of open-source tools with high privacy standards is needed.

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Data Availability

Survey data are available from the authors on request.

References

Papers of particular interest, published recently, have been highlighted as: • Of importance

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to participants in the workshop “Leveraging Smartphone-enabled Group Messaging for Global Health”, for sharing their projects and perspectives, namely, Brian Ahimbisibwe, Sungano Bondayi, Brian DeRenzi, Eric Green, Damian Hacking, Elizabeth Haight, Jakub Hein, Christine Lenihan, Nick Pearson, Ilon Rincon, and Jennifer Velloza.

Code Availability

Not applicable.

Funding

This work was supported by grants R34MH114834 from NIH/NIMH, P30AI027757 from NIH/NIAID, and OPP#1161108 from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Support for REDCap data collection and hosting was provided by the University of Washington’s Institute of Translational Health Sciences, supported by grants UL1 TR002319, KL2 TR002317, and TL1 TR002318 from NCATS/NIH.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Keshet Ronen & Brandon L. Guthrie

  2. Praekelt.org, Cape Town, South Africa

    Eli Grant & Tara Batista

  3. Cedar.com, New York, NY, USA

    Charles Copley

  4. Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

    Tara Batista

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  1. Keshet Ronen
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All authors contributed to manuscript development and data collection. K.R., B.L.G., and T.B. analyzed data. K.R. drafted the manuscript and all authors reviewed and edited it.

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Correspondence to Keshet Ronen.

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Ronen, K., Grant, E., Copley, C. et al. Peer Group Focused eHealth Strategies to Promote HIV Prevention, Testing, and Care Engagement. Curr HIV/AIDS Rep 17, 557–576 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11904-020-00527-w

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