Sexual and Reproductive Health Chatbot
THE QUESTION
Will access to sex-positive sexual and reproductive health information through a chatbot lead to increased contraceptive usage by the Kenyan youth population?
LOCATION: Kenya
SECTOR: Health
TECH: Chatbot
TIMELINE: May 2019 - March 2022
PIONEER: Anne Philpot
PARTNERS: PSI
The Challenge
In 2019, 68% of people living with HIV and 78% of youth (aged 15-24) living with HIV were located in sub-Saharan Africa. Kenya has the third-largest HIV epidemic in the world, and at least 51% of new HIV infections occurred in youth populations. General lack of teaching around sexual and reproductive health and unsafe sex are the key factors behind this high rate. In 2014, a survey found that 40% of Kenyan adults were against sexual heatlh education in fear that it would encourage sex.
The Idea
This pilot tested if an on-demand chatbot that enabled Kenyan young adults to access private and on demand sex-positive sexual and reproductive health information and linkages to healthcare services would decrease risky sexual behaviors and increase contraceptive use, resulting in less unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections.
The Journey
What we learned
The topics of sex and pleasure recieved the most engagement from male and female users at 70% of the total number of views. This demonstrates that Kenyan youth and young adults want to learn sex-positive information.
We spent a lot of time and effort at the beginning of the pilot building the content of the chatbot and identifying potential partners. In hindsight, we wish we had released a minimal viable product sooner as we received the most insights once we saw user engagement. We wish we had recorded these insights sooner so the remainder of the pilot journey could have been focused on building these findings rather than ending on them.
While the chatbot sent 1,119 referrals to a local Kenyan clinic, no users redeemed their referrals. While there could be many reasons behind this, it likely boils down to users and clinics not having the right incentive to perform this step, such as a discount or no wait time. When an action is required to measure a change in behaviour, designing incentives in the wider system should be explored.
All photos on this page were taken by the pilot’s implementing partner, PSI. Read more
Explore the step-by-step journey of the pilot – Pilot Story
Learn more about how the pilot approached sensitive topics — “Frontier Tech Talks: User Insights on Sensitive Topics”
Explore published evidence from the pilot’s mixed-methods study — “Assessing acceptability and effectiveness of a pleasure-oriented sexual and reproductive health chatbot in Kenya: an exploratory mixed-methods study”