You’ve got a text message. You open it up. “How are you?” it asks. That seems like an almost throw-away question. But that simple message once a week, made HIV-positive recipients significantly more likely to take their medicine and remain healthy. The study, conducted in Kenya, was published in The Lancet.

你打開一條收到的短信，上面寫著：“你最近好嗎？”。這似乎只是一句漫不經心的問候，但每周發一條這樣的短信，卻可以讓收到短信的艾滋病人樂于接受藥物治療保持健康。這項研究在肯尼亞進行，已發表在《柳葉刀》雜志上。

Researchers at the University of British Columbia enrolled 538 patients between 2007 and 2009. Half the patients received the weekly text message, and were asked to respond within 48 hours. They could text back either “doing well” or “have a problem.” Clinicians were then able to follow up with people who had a problem or didn’t respond.

英國哥倫比亞大學的研究人員于2007到2009年期間招募了538位接受測試的病人，其中半數病人每周都會收到這樣一條短信，而且研究人員要求他們在48小時內回復。他們可以回復“很好”或者是“出了點問題”，然后臨床醫生就可以進一步觀察了解哪些回復“有問題”以及不回復的病人。

The texts weren’t medicine reminders, they were just to let the patients know that someone was thinking about them. Apparently it worked—study participants said they felt like someone cared. And that may have helped them take care of themselves. Because the ones who received the texts were 12 percent more likely than the nonrecipients to have undetectable levels of the virus a year after being infected. Which means that the simple, friendly outreach of a text message can save lives.

短信并不是在提醒病人吃藥，它只是讓病人知道有人在關心他們。這起到了明顯的作用——研究發現,參加受檢的病人說他們有被人關心的感覺。這種感覺可能會讓他們更愛惜自己的身體，因為在受感染一年后的病毒檢測中，收到短信的病人檢測不到病毒的概率比收不到短信的人要高12%，這就意味著一句簡單親切的問候短信可以挽救生命。