BIOBRIEFPAPER
A 59 person qualitative study finds health workers and community members in sub Saharan Africa see potential for AI in maternal, sexual, and reproductive health, but most lack the awareness to deploy it safely.
Most health workers and community members across sub-Saharan Africa do not know what AI is. A 59-person qualitative study from a regional consortium frames that awareness gap as the variable that decides whether the technology narrows health inequities or widens them in maternal, sexual, and reproductive health.
Published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, the exploratory study drew on four methods: a 16-person round table, 10 key informant interviews, 7 focus group discussions, and 26 stakeholder meetings, with 35 men and 24 women in total. Researchers ran three member-check sessions to verify the framework analysis.
The headline finding is a widespread lack of understanding of AI and what it can or cannot do among both health workers and the general community. Two overarching themes emerged around current and potential uses: filling gaps when skilled health personnel are not consistently available, and targeting high-burden areas where disease and mortality are heaviest.
The work was conducted within HASH, the Hub for Artificial Intelligence in Maternal, Sexual, and Reproductive Health in Sub-Saharan Africa, formed in 2021 by Uganda's Infectious Diseases Institute, Makerere University's College of Computing and Information Science, and Sunbird AI, and funded by Canada's International Development Research Centre and Sweden's SIDA. A preprint version is also available on Research Square. The authors position the study as guidance for responsible implementation and explicitly warn that an irresponsible rollout could deepen the high- versus low-income health disparity it is meant to close.