Large Language Model (LLM)-Based Conversational Agent for Women from Prenatal to Postnatal Care

Martha Yifiru with Dinksira Bekele of Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia will develop a smartphone-based conversational agent in the Amharic language to provide information and answer questions for women on pregnancy, childbirth, and their children’s health. This could reduce maternal and neonatal mortality by providing advice on best practices, including sensitive discussions in private on personal health; detecting early warning signs to enable prevention of health complications for mother and child; and ensuring timely visits to healthcare facilities while avoiding unnecessary visits. They will identify a suitable medical LLM, adapt it for use in Amharic with translations of relevant manuals and other documents, develop the agent with its interfaces between the LLM and user, and validate that the agent’s healthcare advice is as expected, with the possibility of expanding the number of users by including additional Ethiopian languages and creating a speech interface.