The field experiences of about 110 Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) will help design an Artificial Intelligence -enabled training platform and a multilingual voice chatbot to strengthen cervical cancer screening and community counselling in rural Assam .
“This workshop started with a simple principle: technology for ASHAs should be designed with ASHAs. Their experience of explaining screening, responding to concerns, and finding answers in real time will guide the language, content, and functions of this AI platform. Cervical cancer is a major health concern in India, and gaps in awareness and screening continue to get in the way of early detection. ASHAs often bridge that gap, reaching women in their communities, explaining what screening involves, and connecting them to care.
We aim to develop clinically validated support that fits their work, rather than adding another digital burden,” Anita Gadgil, principal investigator of the project and senior research fellow at The George Institute for Global Health, said.
The George Institute for Global Health India and Cachar Cancer Hospital and Research Centre in southern Assam’s Barak Valley will develop digital tools based on these ASHAs’ inputs. They shared their day-to-day challenges with a team of trainers, doctors, programme coordinators, researchers, and technologists at a workshop in Silchar. The workshop, organised recently, was part of a three-year pilot study on leveraging AI for more effective cervical cancer screening funded by the Indian Council of Medical Research. They used a simple voting system to identify which questions came up most frequently in the field, raised by women, husbands, family members, and others in their communities.
During the workshop, the ASHAs reviewed 155 common questions people ask about cervical cancer and screening.
