I know it’s officially spring, but I wanted to remind you that H1N1 flu (also known as swine flu) is still a risk and you should take steps to stay healthy. Even though the H1N1 outbreak in the U.S. was mild over the winter, the World Health Organization still considers H1N1 a pandemic.
Luckily for us, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been providing information since the initial H1N1 outbreak last year. CDC uses traditional channels and social media to get the message out, but I have found their text messaging pilot to be very interesting. To subscribe, you text HEALTH to 87000 and you will receive four introduction messages and then approximately three text messages a week containing health information.
CDC’s text messaging pilot started in September as a three-month pilot, but it’s still in operation. Recently, CDC expanded the focus of the pilot and now offers health information about other health topics like heart disease and smoking. CDC is thinking about making the text messaging pilot permanent and they are interested to hear what you have to say.
What do you think of CDC’s text messaging pilot?