Texting for Health: An Evaluation of a Population Approach to Type 2 Diabetes Risk Reduction With a Personalized Message.

txt4health is an innovative, 14-week, interactive, population-based mobile health program for individuals at risk of type 2 diabetes, developed under the Beacon Community Program in the Greater New Orleans, La., area. A comprehensive social marketing campaign sought to enroll hard-to-reach, at-risk populations using a combination of mass media and face-to-face engagement in faith-based and retail environments.

Considerations for community-based mHealth initiatives: insights from three Beacon Communities.

Mobile health (mHealth) is gaining widespread attention for its potential to engage patients in their health and health care in their daily lives. Emerging evidence suggests that mHealth interventions can be used effectively to support behavior change, but numerous challenges remain when implementing these programs at the community level. This paper provides an overview of considerations when implementing community-based mHealth initiatives, based on the experiences of three Beacon Communities across the United States that have launched text messaging (short message service, SMS) pilot programs aimed at diabetes risk reduction and disease management.