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SMS text messages have been used as part of health intervention research for over a quarter of a century. Given the ease of reaching people via SMS text message, these interventions are important for all groups, including Hispanic individuals. SMS text messaging interventions continue to show promise for improving health in this population. Several reviews have addressed aspects of designing Hispanic-focused digital health interventions. Emphasis has been placed on the linguistic and cultural relevance of SMS text messages in these studies. However, a gap exists in the literature on how SMS text messages are developed and adapted for use in health interventions with Hispanic communities across the life span.
The objective of this scoping review is to answer the following question: how are bilingual SMS text message databases developed and/or adapted for use in health interventions for the Hispanic population in the United States?
In this scoping review, the framework by Arksey and O’Malley and the PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews) guidelines will be used. The review will be conducted in five stages: (1) identifying the research question; (2) identifying relevant studies; (3) study selection; (4) charting the data; and (5) collating, summarizing, and reporting the results. For the inclusion criteria, the population (Hispanic individuals across the life span), concept (development and/or adaptation of bilingual SMS text message databases for health interventions), and context (the United States) framework will be used. There is no age or time limit on the study populations or included articles. In May 2025, we searched 4 databases: PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and CINAHL. Covidence is being used to collect studies. There are 2 phases, each involving 2 independent reviewers: the title and abstract phase followed by the full-text review phase. One of the authors developed a data extraction tool with 4 sections. These sections include general study information, foundational SMS text message database information, how the development and adaptation of the SMS text message database were informed, and data on cultural and linguistic elements of the database. Each section will be presented in tabular format, with descriptive and numerical summaries. Inductive thematic analysis will be used for the fourth section.
This scoping review commenced in May 2025, and titles and abstracts are being reviewed to assess further eligibility. After the full-text review, a determination will be made on which studies to include, and data extraction and results will be documented. We anticipate that this review will be completed by December 2026.
This scoping review of the cultural and linguistic elements of SMS text message databases may contribute to the development of more meaningful and concordant databases for use in health interventions among the Hispanic population.
DERR1-10.2196/86032
SMS text messages have been used as part of health intervention research for over a quarter of a century [
Given the ease of reaching people via SMS text message, these interventions are important for all groups, but especially for populations at higher risk of health disparities, such as the Hispanic, Latino, or Latinx population (hereinafter referred to as “Hispanic”) [
SMS text messaging interventions continue to show promise for improving health in Hispanic populations. Personalized and tailored SMS text messaging interventions have been shown to improve diabetes management by enhancing knowledge, self-efficacy, self-care, and hemoglobin A1c levels among Hispanic individuals [
Within the Hispanic population in the United States, it is important to consider how to address language for SMS text messaging interventions [
Several reviews have addressed aspects of designing health interventions, including SMS text messaging interventions, to address cultural and linguistic aspects unique to the Hispanic population. A systematic review on health literacy for US-based Spanish-speaking populations by Hernandez et al [
This review will contribute to the growing evidence of tailored linguistic and culturally relevant SMS text messaging interventions in current scientific literature. A gap continues to exist in the literature on how SMS text messages are developed and adapted for use in health interventions within Hispanic communities across the life span. We will conduct a scoping review to address this gap in understanding how messages are developed and adapted as core components of interventions targeted to various Hispanic populations across the United States [
In this scoping review, the framework by Arksey and O’Malley [
This scoping review aims to explore the development and adaptation of SMS text message databases. While health outcomes are important in a study, assessing whether an SMS text messaging intervention is effective falls outside the parameters of this scoping review. Therefore, the review question for this scoping review is as follows: how are bilingual SMS text message databases developed and/or adapted for use in health interventions for the Hispanic population in the United States?
In this scoping review, we will use the population, concept, and context framework to identify eligible studies [
The population of interest is Hispanic individuals across the life span. (Study samples that include both Hispanic and non-Hispanic populations will be included if they address the concept and context of interest.)
The concept is the development and/or adaptation of bilingual SMS text message databases for health interventions.
The context is the United States, where English is the official language [
There is no age limit for the study population. There is also no time limit for studies to be included. To be included in the review, studies must meet these 3 criteria. We do not have specific exclusion criteria.
Under the guidance of a university-based librarian, appropriate keywords were selected for the database search. These keywords were then used to search 4 online databases: PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and CINAHL. These searches entailed 2 levels: the first being the population (eg, Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish) and the second being the type of intervention (eg, SMS text messaging and mobile health).
We will include all study designs, including formative work and quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods, as long as they meet the criteria of the population, concept, and context framework for our study. Eligible studies must clearly describe the process of SMS text message development and/or adaptation, including cultural and/or linguistic tailoring. Covidence (Veritas Health Innovation) [
To avoid bias in this scoping review, 2 authors (BB and SWB) who have published articles that could be included in this review have agreed not to review their own studies during the study selection phase. If they see at any time that one of their publications is to be reviewed, they will actively seek out 2 other reviewers to make an independent assessment of the study selection determination.
(“Hispanic or Latino” [Mesh] OR hispanic* OR latin* OR “hispanic-american” OR “spanish-speaking” OR “spanish speaker” OR Spanish OR “latin-american” OR “latin-americans” OR “latin American” OR “latin americans”) AND (“Text Messaging” [Mesh] OR texting OR “text message” OR “text messages” OR “text messaging” OR SMS OR “short message service” OR “mobile phone message*” OR “mobile messaging”)
(“hispanic”/exp OR hispanic OR latin* OR “spanish”/exp OR spanish OR “spanish-speaking” OR “spanish speaking”/exp OR “spanish speaking” OR “spanish speaker” OR “latin-american*” OR “latin american*”) AND (“texting”/exp OR texting OR “text message*” OR “text messaging”/exp OR “text messaging” OR sms OR “short message service”/exp OR “short message service”
TS=(hispanic* OR latin* OR “hispanic american*” OR “spanish-speaking” OR “spanish speaker*” OR “latin american*” OR “latino*” OR “latina*” OR “Spanish”) AND TS=(“text message*” OR texting OR SMS OR “short message service” OR “mobile message*” OR “mobile phone message*” OR “text-based intervention*” OR “text communication” OR “mobile health” OR mHealth) AND TS=(develop* OR design* OR implement* OR deliver* OR “formative research” OR “focus group*” OR “message tailoring” OR “cultural adapt*” OR “intervention development”)
(MH “Hispanic Americans” or Latino OR hispanic* OR latin* OR “hispanic-american” OR MH “Spanish Language” OR “spanish speaker” OR Spanish OR “latin-american” OR “latin-americans” OR “latin American” OR “latin americans”) AND (texting OR MH “Text Messaging” OR “text messages” OR “text messaging” OR SMS OR “short message service” OR “mobile phone message*” OR “mobile messaging”)
One reviewer will independently extract the data, and then a second reviewer will assess their completeness and accuracy.
An author-developed data extraction form will be used in this scoping review. This data extraction tool has 4 sections. The first section will extract general study information: full citation, study design, target population, sample size, setting, and health focus. The second section comprises foundational information about the SMS text message database, including origin of SMS text message database (whether the database was being developed or adapted); number of SMS text messages (in English and/or Spanish); frequency and timing of SMS text messages; database name (if available); and, if known, exemplars of how this database was used in other studies (the information supplied in this section will potentially come from other studies and will be referenced accordingly). The third section addresses elements of how the development and adaptation of the SMS text message database was informed, including use of theory, formative research, and community and stakeholder involvement. The fourth section comprises data on cultural and linguistic elements in the SMS text messages, including languages used, regional dialects, language tailoring strategy (eg, tone and selection of words to resonate with a specific group), cultural adaptation method (eg, changes made to align with the values and norms of the specific group), and personalization (eg, to a specific behavior stage).
Data from the included studies will be reported using the 4 data extraction sections as a guide. For the first section, descriptive and numerical summaries will be used to present the general characteristics of the included studies, such as publication year, country, study design, target population, sample size, setting, and health focus. These data will be presented in tabular format, providing a high-level overview of the scope and distribution of the evidence. For the second section, descriptive and numerical summaries will be provided, with data documented in a tabular format to show the origin of the SMS text message database, any adaptations to the database, the number of SMS text messages, the frequency and timing with which those SMS text messages are intended to be used or have been used, and the name of the database. If known, exemplars of how the database has been used will be provided. For the third section, descriptive and numerical summaries will be used to present data in tabular form on how theory, formative research, and/or community and stakeholder involvement occurred during the development and adaptation of the SMS text message database. For the fourth section, the data will initially be presented in a tabular format. However, with these data, which document the cultural and linguistic elements of the SMS text messages, an inductive thematic analysis will be undertaken to assess how themes emerge directly from the data without a preexisting theoretical constraint [
It is acknowledged that not all fields may contain complete or directly comparable information. In such cases, necessary modifications will be made to accommodate the available data, and some fields may remain unpopulated across the documentation of multiple studies.
This scoping review commenced in May 2025. After duplicates were removed, 2531 titles and abstracts were reviewed to assess whether they were eligible for full-text review. After this initial review, 255 full-text articles are now being reviewed to determine which studies meet the eligibility criteria. Once this is completed, data extraction will be completed. Results will then be synthesized. We anticipate that this review will be completed by December 2026. Conception of the scoping review was developed by a team of researchers working on the 50K4Life study (NCT06411769; J Salinas: principal investigator).
The strengths of this scoping review are the addition to the literature of a comprehensive review of the development and adaptation of bilingual SMS text message databases for the Hispanic population. It is anticipated that data on the linguistic and cultural adaptation of SMS text message databases will be available based on prior literature reviews that emphasize the importance of ensuring that health interventions are appropriately tailored to specific Hispanic population groups [
The limitations of this review are that there may be no published work on the development and adaptation of bilingual databases, and therefore, we will not be able to include it in this review or the possibility that those bilingual databases simply do not exist. Contributing to this is the limitation that the search strategy does not include gray literature and, therefore, may not locate posters, presentations, or unpublished studies. Additionally, while the review may inform the development of future interventions, this study will not assess outcomes and cannot comment on whether the methods identified are successful.
This review will provide a foundational starting point for SMS text message development for other researchers (or a way for them to continue their work). This will allow research teams to determine whether they want to incorporate any of those findings and, if not, why, along with consideration of bringing in other development aspects that may not have been widely used. Researchers will have an opportunity to review how existing bilingual databases have been developed and potentially adapted over time. This scoping review of the cultural and linguistic elements of those databases will potentially contribute to more meaningful, concordant, and effective SMS text message databases for use in health interventions.
This scoping review will examine how bilingual SMS text message databases have been developed and potentially adapted for use in health interventions among the Hispanic population. Findings from this review may inform the development of future interventions and guide researchers and practitioners in designing culturally responsive health communication strategies.
Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews
The authors appreciate the work of Michelle Gallegos, who advised on the cultural and linguistic elements of SMS text messages for the Hispanic population.
Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number U01MD019289. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
Data sharing is not applicable to this paper as no datasets were generated or analyzed during this study.
HAV facilitated the writing of the original draft of the manuscript. SWB conceptualized and organized the review and facilitated the revision of the manuscript. BB provided manuscript review. JLG provided review clarification and manuscript review. KKC informed the conceptualization of the review. SK provided expertise in communication. JS assisted with the literature search. JW reviewed the manuscript. JJS informed the conceptualization of the review and provided assistance with writing and review of the manuscript.
JW is the Editor-in-Chief of