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.

你打开一条收到的短信，上面写着：“你最近好吗？”。这似乎只是一句漫不经心的问候，但每周发一条这样的短信，却可以让收到短信的艾滋病人乐于接受药物治疗保持健康。这项研究在肯尼亚进行，已发表在《柳叶刀》杂志上。

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.

英国哥伦比亚大学的研究人员于2007到2009年期间招募了538位接受测试的病人，其中半数病人每周都会收到这样一条短信，而且研究人员要求他们在48小时内回复。他们可以回复“很好”或者是“出了点问题”，然后临床医生就可以进一步观察了解哪些回复“有问题”以及不回复的病人。

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药，它只是让病人知道有人在关心他们。这起到了明显的作用——研究发现,参加受检的病人说他们有被人关心的感觉。这种感觉可能会让他们更爱惜自己的身体，因为在受感染一年后的病毒检测中，收到短信的病人检测不到病毒的概率比收不到短信的人要高12%，这就意味着一句简单亲切的问候短信可以挽救生命。