A Spiritually-Based Text Messaging Program to Increase Cervical Cancer Awareness Among African American Women: Design and Development of the CervixCheck Pilot Study.

Background: Although Hispanic women have the highest cervical cancer incidence rate, African American women account for a disproportionate burden of cervical cancer incidence and mortality when compared with non-Hispanic white women. Given that religion occupies an essential place in African American lives, delivering health messages through a popular communication delivery channel and framing them with important spiritual themes may allow for a more accessible and culturally appropriate approach to promoting cervical cancer educational content to African American women.

Objective: The aim of this paper was to describe the design and development of the CervixCheck project, a spiritually based short message service (SMS) text messaging pilot intervention to increase cervical cancer awareness and Papanicolaou test screening intention among church-attending African American women aged 21 to 65 years.

A Needs Assessment of Health Issues Related to Maternal Mortality Rates in Afghanistan: A Pilot Study.

Maternal death rates in Afghanistan were among the highest in the world during the reign of the Taliban. Although these figures have improved, current rates are still alarming. The aim of this pilot study was to develop a needs assessment of the major health issues related to the high maternal mortality rates in Afghanistan.

Emergency contraceptive pills: a 10-year follow-up survey of use and experiences at college health centers in the mid-Atlantic United States.

The authors conducted a 10-year follow-up study using a telephone survey to investigate the availability of emergency contraceptive pills (ECPs) at college health centers in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. They also examined related issues, such as distribution procedure, existence of a written protocol, personnel involved, contraindications, follow-up procedures, methods of advertising, staff attitudes, changes in distribution over the past 10 years, and availability if ECPs become over-the-counter. Of the 119 completed responses, 58 schools (49%) reported distributing ECPs.