Dating apps are not just about finding love or hooking up. They’re becoming increasingly important in the communication of public health messaging, particularly sexual health.
In 2023, Harvard Public Health magazine suggested that dating apps could “become a key component in [sexually infectious diseases] prevention”. And their prediction seems to be spot on. Grindr, a dating app popular among men who have sex with men, for example, has recently partnered with MPOWER in Ireland and The Love Tank in London to allow users to order HIV test kits through the app. While these partnerships hold promise for public health, they also raise important ethical challenges. Alongside colleagues from the UK and US, we have published a discussion of these challenges and proposed ways of addressing them.
