Guidelines for eHealth and social media in sexual health promotion for young ethnic minorities

Introduction: Recently a rapid growth of modern technologies addressing sexuality and health has taken place. Young ethnic minorities could especially benefit from these eHealth initiatives, but they have to meet their specific needs. Sexual health is a sensitive subject in many cultures and eHealth interventions could therefore be useful. We aim to identify what qualities interventions should possess to facilitate qualitatively well-designed and tailored eHealth interventions in the future and to evaluate currently available ones. Method: We investigated what features are important in three focus groups with young ethnic minorities. In total, 28 ethnic minorities participated in the study. We focused on social media, serious games, and mobile applications.Results: Five factors were especially important. The most important factor was anonymity, which has important implications for the use of social networks for sexual health promotion. Additionally, interactivity facilitates engagement and insures better uptake of eHealth technology. Mobility was another crucial factor, as it insures privacy and effortless use. The source of information has to visible and reliable. Specific to young ethnic minorities, eHealth interventions for health promotion also have to be more visually aided and easily worded, if possible in different languages.Conclusions: Applying these factors in the design and implementation of eHealth technologies should increase their uptake and usefulness for enhancing sexual well-being of young ethnic minorities.