Digital Health

Digital health provides opportunities for people who avoid HIV and SRH services out of stigma and discrimination. Together with partners, we’ve built multiple digital health solutions that really touch upon the need for accessibility, anonymity, and user-friendliness of SRHR/HIV information and services

Digital Health

Digital health provides opportunities for people who avoid HIV and SRH services out of stigma and discrimination. Together with partners, we’ve built multiple digital health solutions that really touch upon the need for accessibility, anonymity, and user-friendliness of SRHR/HIV information and services

Why people have difficulties taking care of their health

Many people have no or limited access to health information and services, including sexual and reproductive health and HIV. Sex workers and LGBT people are being criminalised and they face stigma, violence and human rights violations, which impedes access to health services. Young people avoid services for not being youth friendly and the fear of judgmental staff. The healthcare system is often overburdened, lacks privacy, or information and services are of poor quality. The ongoing COVID pandemic also restricts young people's access to health care. Digital health solutions solve many of these challenges.

Digital health & HIV response

Digital health is increasingly being seen as an essential factor to ending AIDS as a public health threat. For example, mobile technology is helping people affected by HIV in remote areas access information about HIV prevention or adhere to treatment. Electronic health records are strengthening the HIV care cascade by providing accurate and timely patient information. Social media is bringing people affected by HIV together to share information and campaign for their rights.

Digital health opens up new healthcare solutions from the privacy of someone's own home. This is especially important for those who avoid HIV and SRHR services for fear of being stigmatised. It also promotes self-care by enabling individuals, families and communities the ability to take control of their own health care journey by promoting health, preventing disease and tactics to cope with illness and disability outside of the scope of traditional healthcare providers.

Harnessing the power of digital technologies to address the health needs of communities most affected by HIV is essential for achieving Universal Health Coverage.

Screenshot Thandizo tool Screenshot Thandizo tool

Our vision: digital health enables selfcare

Aidsfonds’ vision on digital health is to enable the most affected communities to prevent, diagnose and treat health issues through improved access to comprehensive information, services and self-care products, and accelerate universal health coverage for everyone. To reach our ambition, we: 

  • support our local and international partners on how to build effective and efficient digital health solutions, e.g. health education videos in Uganda
  • co-create digital health eco-systems that provide quality information, services and self-care products to our communities, e.g. youth brand B-wise Stepped Care in South Africa
  • co-create digital health tools that support peer-educators and community health workers in providing health care to our communities, e.g. Thandizo tool in Malawi
  • are member of the Digital Connected Care Coalition, Transform Health and the Digital Health coalition Kenya. These platforms support more efficient partnerships across sectors and reduce fragmentation, with the aim to harness transformative benefits of digital technology to achieve health for all in low- and middle-income countries.
Girl in white dress looks up with raised head Girl in white dress looks up with raised head

The Stepped Care Model organises existing SRHR services

With our Stepped Care Model for Sexual Health we help partners organise and optimise existing SRHR services and information under one, trusted youth-friendly brand. It connects young people to the different services that directly meet their needs. It helps professionals to empower young people to make informed decisions.

Building upon 10 years of experience with youth-brand Sense in the Netherlands, we have taken the initiative to scale up the Stepped Care model internationally, currently implementing in South Africa, Kenya, Mozambique and Indonesia. Furthermore, the Stepped Care Model guided the Digital Health Coalition for Adolescents and Young People Kenya (DHCK), a strategic alliance to reduce the fragmentation of digital interventions and better serve the needs of young people.

Health at your fingertips with youth brand B-wise

A successful example of the Stepped Care Model for Sexual Health is youth brand B-wise, which is adapted to the South African context. B-wise is led by the South African National Department of Health that aims to become the most trusted, personalized and engaging source of SRHR health information for adolescents and youth in South Africa. Objectives are to decrease new HIV infections, gender-based violence and teenage pregnancies, increase retention in schools and achieve better mental health outcomes.

Sscreenshot B-wise website Sscreenshot B-wise website

Digital self-care guidelines

The Self-Care Trailblazer Group partnered with HealthEnabled to facilitate the development of a framework to provide practical guidance for effectively designed, implemented and researched digital health in support of self-care. Aidsfonds as member of the Self-Care Trailblazer Group, co-wrote these guidelines.

Cover guidelines Cover guidelines

More of our digital health solutions

Mukoko mobile app collects data in Zimbabwe

Mukoko mobile app collects data...

Discover Mukoko

125,000 SRHR education session on tablets in Uganda...

125,000 SRHR education session...

Find out how

Have a digital coffee with us!

Are you interested to financially support the scale up of our digital health solutions so more young people can live healthy sexual lives? We are looking forward to jointly exploring opportunities to pilot new models and to scale up to other countries. Be welcome to contact Aidsfonds' digital health expert Leon Essink to share your thoughts and ideas. And coffee preferences ;)

 

Portrait of Leon Portrait of Leon

Our partners in digital health

Our work

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Tanya Marlo Indonesia - Stepped Care Model

To turn the tide on the rising numbers of AIDS-related deaths in lndonesia, it i...

B-wise South Africa - Stepped Care Model

Youth brand B-wise is built around the Stepped Care Model for Sexual Health adap...

One2One Kenya - Stepped Care Model

The One2One website as part of the broader Stepped Care model contains sex-posit...

Thandizo Approach

The Thandizo approach supports young people living with HIV to adhere to treatme...

GUSO Flexi

GUSO Flexi implements an innovative business model (Healthy Entrepreneurs) in th...

Sense - Stepped Care in the Netherlands

Sense is the Dutch national brand for young people’s sexual health information...

Sparked Women: Local Business Solutions for Better Health

The Sparked Women project aims to reduce new HIV infections among young women in...

Digital Self-care - a Framework for Design, Implementation & Evaluation

Recent developments in health practices that were once in the full control of he...

Tanya Marlo improves access to SRHR info for young people in Indonesia

The Tanya Marlo online platforms work to reach young people in Indonesia with qu...

Pleasure-based, youth-friendly website about love and sex launched in Kenya

As from February 26, 2021, young people in Kenya can access a brand new and uniq...

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