Mobile technology, cancer prevention, and health status among diverse, low-income adults.

Purpose: Characterize mobile technology ownership, use, and relationship to self-reported cancer prevention behaviors and health status in a diverse, low-income sample of callers to 2-1-1.

Design: Secondary analyses of cross-sectional survey data from a larger trial collected from June 2010 to December 2012.

Setting: United Way Missouri 2-1-1 serves 99 of 114 counties and received 166,000 calls in 2011.

Subjects: The respondents (baseline, n = 1898; 4 month, n = 1242) were predominantly female, non-Hispanic Black, younger than 50 years, with high-school education or less and annual income <$20,000.

Measures: Cell phone ownership and use and its relationship to cancer prevention services and health status were assessed via telephone-based survey, using items adapted from previous research and the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. Smartphone ownership and use were also assessed.

Analysis: Descriptive statistics and bivariate and multivariate associations between cell phone ownership and prevention and health status are reported.

Results: Three-fourths (74%) of study participants owned a cell phone and 23% owned a smartphone. Text messaging was the most popular use. Ownership was significantly associated with good to excellent health status and presence of smoke-free home policies in multivariate models.

Conclusion: Cell phone ownership is growing and has potential to deliver health information to low-income populations. With 16 million calls annually, the national 2-1-1 system may be a promising model and platform.