The Centre for Social Sciences Research (CSSR) and the  Institute for Democracy, Citizenship and Public Policy in Africa  (IDCPPA) at the University of Cape Town invite you to join us for a lunchtime seminar on 24 March 2026 at 12:45pm. The seminar will be presented by Kate Bergh.

About the Seminar:

Motivation, Access, and Effective Use: Applications of the HIV and Pregnancy Prevention Cascade to Investigate Pre- exposure Prophylaxis, Condom and Contraceptive Use Among Adolescent Girls and Young Women in South Africa

To achieve universal health coverage (UHC) and ensure a significant global reduction in HIV infections and unintended pregnancies by 2030, high quality HIV and pregnancy prevention programmes are needed for populations most at risk of these health outcomes with high intensity and at scale. Accurate measurement tools are critical to accountability and improvement within health systems, although there is a need for fewer and better health system quality measures. Health service-coverage cascades have been proposed as the most appropriate way to measure effective coverage and UHC. Within the context of HIV and pregnancy prevention programmes, there is no standardised way to measure uptake of and adherence to HIV and pregnancy prevention methods. 

The HIV prevention cascade is a framework which can be used to measure uptake and adherence to direct methods of HIV prevention such as condoms and pre-exposure prophylaxis within combination HIV prevention programmes. However, there is limited empirical evidence of its application among different populations, especially adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) in low-resourced countries, such as South Africa, who urgently need to use HIV and pregnancy prevention services. This PhD aimed to apply, estimate, and refine the HIV prevention cascade for AGYW in South Africa, and ths presentation will rpvoide an overview of the methods used to achieve this and key findings and conclusions.

Speakers

Kate Bergh is a Senior Scientist at the HealthSystems Research Unit at the South African Medical Resarch Council where her work focuses on evalutating large-scale HIV prevention programmes such as the My Journey and Imagine Programme. She is also a PhD Student in the Department of Psychology, and has a Master of Public Health from Imperial College London, and a Bachelor of Science with Honours in Infectious Diseases from the University of Cape Town.

  24 March 2026
  12:45 - 14:00 SAST
   CSSR Seminar Room, 4.29 Robert Leslie Social Science Building, UCT

Hosted by the Centre for Social Science Research and the Institute for Democracy, Citizenship and Public Policy in Africa