Project for Reproductive Equity Through Volunteers and Entrepreneurship, Networks and Technology

Summary

The PREVENT Project is a multifaceted, adolescent friendly, culturally competent program aimed to address the issues surrounding unplanned pregnancies and lack of access and uptake of contraceptive services among adolescent girls. The intervention uses a mobile platform that provides educational SMS (Short Message Service) messaging, interactive voice response, and connects adolescent girls to community based AFSRH (Adolescent Friendly Sexual Reproductive Health) counselling services, as well as discreet contraceptive access points headed by female entrepreneurs. The program will be piloted for 12 months in various wards and villages in rural and urban Kilimanjaro, Tanzania.The acceptability and practicality of the intervention will be assessed using mixed methods. Questionnaires and focus groups will be conducted with the study participants, as well as the medical and non-medical volunteers at the start and end of the pilot. The study will be heavily supported by all-female non-medical social entrepreneurs and sexual reproductive health community mentors (volunteers), and, all-female medical reproductive health team. Recruitment will also take place in hair saloons (local hair braiding and styling establishments) and other female run business such as tailors and female clothing stores that have enlisted to become contraceptive access points in the study. There will be 2 intervention groups, control and case group. Both groups will receive educational SMS (text) messages on SRH (Sexual Reproductive Health) and access individually tailored educational resources through interactive voice response (IVR) services/system via PREVENT mobile platform. In addition to personal support to be able to contact with a SRH community peer mentor in the community for AFSRH counselling and support. The case group will then have access to contraception provided with detailed and discreet information on accessing PREVENT contraceptive access points in all communities included in the study.

Conditions

• Contraception
• Pregnancy Related
• Reproductive Behavior

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Education

Receive educational SMS (text) messages about contraceptive use and family planning on SRH and access individually tailored educational resources through interactive voice response (IVR) services/system via PREVENT mobile platform.

BEHAVIORAL

Personal Support

Contact with a female business owner within the community (hair saloons, tailors, female clothing stores) act as both a confidential, and non-judgmental resource to answer questions and provide counselling in SRH to study participants.

BEHAVIORAL

Access to contraception

Will be provided by the mobile reproductive health team at contraceptive access points, and, at the health facility partners who will be providing full reproductive health services to program participants and will be the access points for Intra-Uterine Device (IUD) insertion where requested and medically suitable. Results of point of care urine HCG (pregnancy) testing (voluntary at enrollment and mandatory when accessing contraceptive services)

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Dr. Karen Yeates

  lead OTHER

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH

Masking

TRIPLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

15 Years

Max Age

19 Years

Sex

FEMALE

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2026-12-31

Primary Completion

2027-12-01

Completion

2028-06-01

Countries

• Canada

Study Locations