Services teamed up to warn about syphilis outbreaks in area
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When Monongalia County Health Department was alerted to a syphilis outbreak in spring 2019, Dr. Lee B. Smith, MCHD’s executive director and county health officer, wanted to put into practice an idea he heard at a conference a decade earlier.
So MCHD partnered with Grindr, a dating app, to target the outbreak’s most affected demographic — men who have sex with men, sometimes using dating apps to locate each other.
After nearly seven months, about 66,000 individuals had seen a public service announcement that went out to Grindr users within a 50-mile radius of Morgantown.
Also, 4,725 users clicked through to MCHD’s newly created syphilis webpage, featuring syphilis information as well as how to make an appointment for free testing and treatment at MCHD Clinical Services.
Because of the messaging, inquiries about syphilis went up at MCHD Clinical Services and anecdotally, it was learned that at least one asymptomatic individual who saw the public service announcement got tested and was treated for syphilis.
MCHD’s partnership with Grindr was named a Model Practice Award winner by the National Association of County and City Health Officials, an organization that represents nearly 3,000 members.
A poster created by Smith and Mary Wade Burnside, MCHD’s public information officer, was presented at NACCHO 360, a virtual conference held in early July. Smith also recorded a TED-style talk discussing the outbreak and the health department’s approach to it.
“Monongalia County Health Department is extremely pleased to have earned this national recognition from our peers,” Smith said.
According to a press release from NACCHO, the Model Practice Awards are “an annual recognition of programs demonstrating exemplary and replicable qualities in response to a critical local public health need.”
This year, the NACCHO release noted, 21 local health departments received the Model Practice designation, with projects that addressed a broad range of public health issues, including LGBTQ+ health equity, infectious diseases, environmental health, lactation support and injury and violence prevention.
“We were in great company,” Smith said. “We enjoyed the opportunity to tell our peers about our project and to hear them discuss their approaches to public health issues.”
Smith had wanted to implement a project using smartphones to send out public health messages targeting specific audiences since he heard about how providers in sub-Saharan Africa negotiated with phone companies in that area to use 2% of their airtime to run information regarding HIV/AIDS.
Grindr stepped up and agreed to work with Monongalia County Health Department. Initial results exceeded expectations. In the first nine hours of the PSA’s release, 5,000 unique individuals saw the message; in a month, it was 21,933 unique individuals, with a click-through rate to the new informational web page of 10%.
Syphillis is a sexually transmitted disease that can cause serious health problems if left untreated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (cdc.gov). In its first stage, which often remains undetected, syphilis can be easily treated with antibiotics. The second stage can include a skin rash, swollen lymph nodes and fever. During the latent, tertiary stage, there are no signs or symptoms, but the disease can damage internal organs and may eventually lead to death.
“That’s why early detection is so important,” Smith said. “It’s so much easier to treat in the first phase.”
Precautions should be taken to avoid getting syphilis and other STDs. These include limiting and preferably knowing your sexual partners, using condoms correctly for every sexual encounter and getting tested for STDs. All sexually active individuals should be tested for STDs at least once; people who have multiple partners or engage in high-risk behaviors should be tested at least every six months. Individuals can discuss testing with their health care providers.
After the success of the MCHD/Grindr partnership, Smith believes this type of public service announcement may be used effectively to publicize and educate people regarding other important public health information.
Also as part of the NACCHO 360 virtual conference, Brittany Irick, MCHD’s grant writer and coordinator of the Monongalia County Quick Response Team, created a poster and recorded an audio presentation providing an overview of the QRT, which works to reduce opioid overdoses in the community.
“We hope that next year, we’ll be able to attend the annual NACCHO conference and be able to see and interact with our colleagues in person,” Smith said.
To view the TED-style talk Smith created as part of the NACCHO 360 virtual conference, go to https://youtu.be/ZyrNFSQxE6g. To see the poster, go to monchd.org/posters.html. To see the MCHD syphilis web page, go to monchd.org/syphilis.html.
For up-to-date information on health and wellness in Monongalia County, check out monchd.org and follow the health department on Facebook and Twitter @WVMCHD and on Instagram at #wvmchd.
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