An Eastern Michigan University (EMU) student has created a new app that allows users to take control of their sexual health and alert partners to potential sexually-transmitted infections (STIs). The app, called KISS (an acronym for Knowledge, Information, and Safer Sex), was created by Max Morefield, a student in EMU's entrepreneurship program. It will launch soon in app stores, pending the stores' review processes.

Morefield says he is always coming up with business ideas, but the app is the first he's taken to completion. He got the idea from tracking apps created during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"In large cities, they'd have tracking apps, and if you had been near someone who reported a COVID infection, your phone would alert you," Morefield says. "When I heard about those apps, I was surprised there was not something like that for STIs and sexual health."

Morefield started doing research and a competition analysis, which found there was very little competition for his idea. At least one app exists for informing partners of STI status, but it requires knowing the other person's phone number. Morefield says that's limiting because some people who meet on dating apps may communicate only through the app and therefore don't know each other's phone numbers.

Morefield notes that, while we know more than ever about the importance of preventing STIs through condoms or medications like PrEP, STI rates in the U.S. have continued to reach record highs. He thinks that's in part due to the way dating apps have made it easier to connect. Research shows that three in 10 U.S. adults have used a dating site or app. That means millions of people making connections and having "a lot of hookups," Morefield says.

KISS doesn't collect any personal information, Morefield notes. It creates a unique QR code that each user can scan in. If you receive a positive STI test, you can track it in the app, which will alert your past partners. 

"Once you get tested, it creates this digital net around the spread of infection," Morefield says. "Something that could never happen in the past can now happen in a matter of seconds."

The app also includes an educational section with information about more than two dozen STIs, sexual health, sexuality and gender, consent, and more.

Morefield says the app is under review by Apple, which has a more stringent review process than Google Play. If all goes to plan, the app should be released to the Apple App Store sometime in the next couple of weeks, followed shortly by release in the Google Play Store.

For more information, visit www.mykissapp.com.

Sarah Rigg is a freelance writer and editor in Ypsilanti Township and the project manager of On the Ground Ypsilanti. She joined Concentrate as a news writer in early 2017 and is an occasional contributor to other Issue Media Group publications. You may reach her at sarahrigg1@gmail.com.