New Episode of AVAC’s Podcast, Px Pulse! Human-Centered Design and HIV Prevention in the Real World

October 22, 2019

Our latest episode of the Px Pulse podcast looks at Breaking the Cycle of Transmission, a human-centered design project that’s shedding new light on how to bring HIV prevention to adolescent girls and young women.

The task is imperative. Four out of five new infections among adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa are in girls. Young women aged 15-25 are more than twice as likely as their male counterparts to be living with HIV, based on the latest figures from UNAIDS. The challenge is daunting—stigma, gender-based violence and other forms of inequality persist as serious barriers to prevention.

To overcome these barriers, AVAC and CHAI’s Prevention Market Manager project is applying strategies for understanding the needs of adolescent girls and young women through an approach known as human-centered design, or HCD.

In this episode of Px Pulse, we hear from AVAC’s Global Marketing Manager, Anabel Gomez, about the HCD project in South Africa that is trying to chart a path that will better support girls and young women on a journey to HIV prevention.

We also hear from two members of the team—Lesego Taule and Mpumi Mbethe—who helped lead discussions with girls and young women to understand their needs, hopes and challenges in communities where HIV rates are high.

And Anthony Ambrose of NACOSA, an implementer in South Africa, tells us how the research can be applied to programs, and how it changed the way he thinks about HIV risk.

For the full podcast episode, highlights and resources, visit avac.org/px-pulse. And subscribe on Apple Podcasts to catch every episode!