Mobile app aims to guide adolescents toward healthy sexual behaviors

Seventeen Days, a new mobile app that educates girls aged 14 to 17 years about contraception and STIs, is set to release free of charge on June 4, 2015, according to a recent press release.

“Our goal is to create and make readily available a tool that will help teenagers make better decisions for themselves. For the most part, adolescents don’t want to get pregnant. They definitely don’t want to contract a disease. By building on our research about what goes on in their decisions, we have crafted an application that will help them avoid these negative outcomes,” Julie Downs, associate professor, Carnegie Mellon University, said in the press release.

The new mobile app is based on the Seventeen Days film, which the app makes interactive, and portrays young women dealing with various real-life situations, including a pregnancy scare, condom demonstration, contraception choices and STIs. After choosing what to watch, the interactive film then guides the viewer through the situation and allows them to practice their response.

Both the video and app were produced with a $7.4 million grant from the HHS, that was intended to update their previous interactive video, What Could You Do?, which was shown to increase abstinence and young women’s knowledge about associated risk factors for various sexual behaviors, as well as add confidence for young women implementing these safe behaviors themselves.

Pamela Murray

“We know that teenagers are having sex, and addressing this is a very important part of their healthcare needs. The [CDC] has highlighted teen pregnancy as a winnable public health battle. In the same way that we’ve reduced infectious diseases with immunization, we can reduce teen pregnancy rates and unwanted pregnancy with better communication,” Pamela Murray, MD, MPH, section chief of adolescent medicine, West Virginia University Healthcare, said in a press release.

More information about the Seventeen Days film can be found at www.seventeendays.org. Visit www.seventeendays.org/app to download the app.