More and more people are using digital tools to get tested for STIs. But we don’t know much about how to ensure that the public health benefit of these tools last for a long time. We call this sustainability. In this project, we want to learn how to make the benefit of these tools last. Here is what we will do:
• Review existing research to find out what things people think about when they want digital STI tools to be sustainable.
• Explore the experiences of digital STI testing programs, like BC’s GetCheckedOnline (GCO) and other similar programs. GCO is a program that lets people get tested for STIs online. We will review program documents. We will also interview the people who run the program and those who work with them. We will document the processes and factors that have made their programs sustainable so far.
• Review GCO’s data to see how people use the program. This is important because some people worry that too many people using the program too often might make it hard to keep it going.
Our project will help GCO and other programs like it plan for the future. It will also help us make a plan for how to make these programs sustainable.