“AI Never Reveals Your Secrets”: Preliminary User Insights on “Self-Cav” (...) - Vhugala Ngwenya

Lecture: Abstract #9 “AI Never Reveals Your Secrets” - Preliminary User Insights on “Self-Cav” (Self-Care): A Health and Wellbeing AI-Enhanced Chatbot for South African Adolescents and Youth Aged 12-24 Years
Speaker: Vhugala Ngwenya
Affiliation: Shout-it-Now / University of Cape Town, South Africa

Presented at the 9th International Workshop on Adolescence, SRHR & HIV 2025

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About the workshop: Adolescence is a unique developmental stage full of transitions that offer both challenges and opportunities – including laying a foundation for good health. Every effort must be made to ensure access to HIV and SRHR services and retain adolescents in care to improve and maintain their health and well-being.  The medical advances that have transformed HIV treatment and prevention are yet to alter the stark reality for adolescents and young people, particularly in low to middle-income countries. Even as AIDS-related mortality has decreased overall in recent years, AIDS-related deaths among adolescents are still higher than in adults. AIDS is still the no.1 cause of death of adolescents in 12 countries in SSA, and almost six times as many adolescent girls acquired HIV than adolescent boys. Uncountable early pregnancies among young women who were not ready have occurred, often in the context of violence. Globally 50% of pregnancies among 15 - 19-year-olds were unintended. Young key populations remain marginalized from critical services. There is a need to understand and invest in evidence-informed multi-sectoral solutions that support young people to reduce their HIV risk, improve SRH, educational and employment outcomes, reduce poverty and hunger, and exposure to violence and mental health. This workshop aims to look at the fuller lives of adolescents and address the multiple overlapping drivers that impact their sexual and reproductive health and HIV needs. It explores new and innovative approaches, such as digital technology, and focuses on adolescents’ agency and leadership to control their health and lives.