Family Planning

Henrique Araujo Lima of the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais in Brazil will develop a tool to systematically assess the accuracy and clarity of responses generated by Large Language Models (LLMs) to common questions on maternal health to increase their value in settings with limited healthcare access. To improve LLMs, it is essential to ensure the information they provide is both reliable and understandable, and for purposes such as health, LLMs will only be successful if both healthcare providers and users are confident about their benefits.

Neal Lesh of Dimagi South Africa (Pty) Ltd. in South Africa will create an LLM-powered coach tailored to frontline workers that offers training, performance feedback, and encouragement to support their health and improve their productivity. Frontline programs serve billions of people; however, they rely on a hard-working, often overburdened workforce that receives limited support, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. They will work with 10–20 community health volunteers in Malawi to co-design three variations of the LLM-powered coach using their rapid LLM-building platform.

Bioceptive aims to expand access to long-acting reversible contraception (LARC) for the estimated 222 million women around the world with an unmet need for modern family planning resources. The discreet intrauterine device (IUD) is one of the most applicable LARC methods for global use due to its long term of use, high efficacy, and minimal user effort. However, IUD access is frequently limited because the insertion procedure is complicated and only carried out by highly trained physicians.

Worldwide, 45 percent of births are to women aged 15-24 (UN 2012). In Uganda, the average woman becomes sexually active at 17 and has her first child at age 20 (PMA 2017a). While premarital sex and early marriage are common, they are also stigmatized, rendering youth vulnerable to exclusion from reproductive health services. As a result, only 48% of young, unmarried sexually active girls use modern contraceptives, and only 41% of users received contraceptive counseling (PMA 2017b).

Our innovation addresses two problems: lack of access to information on contraception and family planning (FP) in Madagascar, and the resulting low uptake of contraceptives and FP services. The contraceptive rate is 38.9% (PSI TRAC PF 2017) with 16.4% of married women reporting an unmet need for contraception or wanting to space/ limit pregnancy. Lack of accurate information about different contraceptive methods and lack of access to effective long-term methods are barriers to use.

Despite the deaths of many women in Malawi due to unsafe abortion, there is huge silence on the issue which is regarded as a taboo. With that silence engulfing Malawi despite over 141,000 women procuring abortion every year, interventions to address the public health challenge are not being discussed. Women continue to die in silence due to unsafe abortions. Due to the prevailing restrictive law, most abortions result in serious complications and deaths.

Le taux de prévalence contraceptive au Mali chez les femmes en union est l'un des plus bas de l'Afrique Subsaharienne. Les besoins non satisfaits en Planification Familiale estimés à 31 % restent élevés et la fécondité de 6,6 enfants par femme est préoccupante face à un taux d'accroissement de la population élevé de 3, 6 %. Le Mali compte parmi les pays où la fréquence du mariage précoce « est la plus grande à l'échelle mondiale » (Walker sept. 2013, 9).

Women and girls in deprived rural communities in Uganda have little or no access to contraception due to financial constraints placed on health, contributing to continued high birth rates, poor socio-economic structures and gender inequality.

1.3 million affected Rohingya people have crossed into Bangladesh fleeing violence in Rakhine State. 316,000 of them are women of reproductive age (15-49). Among the 64,000 currently pregnant, >18% teenagers and 62% between 21-29 years. Among ever-pregnant, 42% have ≥4 and 18% have ≥3 children. Mean age at 1st marriage and 1st pregnancy is 16.8±2.2 and 18±2.4 years. Contraceptive prevalence rate 33.7%. Aim is to improve sexual and reproductive health and family planning knowledge and practices.

In Pakistan, 46% of pregnancies are unintended, the extremely low prevalence of modern contraceptive methods, which is only 26%. That contributes to population growth and endangering women's health. Access to modern contraceptives is very limited in poor areas. It is very difficult for male and female to buy contraceptives as considered as a social taboo and religiously unethical. Out of 9m of the potential users, 6m live in rural areas where there is a dire need of access to contraceptives.