Supporting self-care at every stage
Avert is supporting self-care through a range of digital approaches that open up access to health information, enable privacy, and build confidence and agency.
Published on 29 February 2024 | Emma Collingbourne
Self-care plays a fundamental role in how individuals maintain and improve their health and wellbeing throughout their lives. Self-care covers a variety of interventions and is important at all stages of an individual’s health journey; including healthy choices for disease prevention; self-testing or self-examination for issue identification; and a range of actions for ongoing monitoring and management of conditions.
Health literacy is an essential pre-requisite for effective self-care. Equipping individuals with accurate and actionable health information and tools ensures they are more able and empowered to successfully prevent, monitor and manage their health conditions.
Self-care is especially important for marginalised and vulnerable populations, including young people and others who are less able to access clinic-based health information and services due to stigma and discrimination, their specific health needs not being catered for, and other social, legal and financial barriers to access.
Young people are increasingly turning to social media and online information to get advice on all aspects of their lives, including health and self-care. Trustworthy online spaces open up many opportunities by providing a safe, private way for individuals to access critical health information that they may not be able to reliably access elsewhere.
Health literacy is an essential pre-requisite for effective self-care.
Be in the KNOW is Avert’s digital health information brand on website and social media, providing accurate and actionable health information and tools that can support self-care. Providing a broad range of sexual health self-care content, topics covered include contraception, healthy relationships, sexuality and rights, as well as explainers on HIV prevention options and how to use them effectively, how to self-test, and how to live well with HIV. Be in the KNOW content is stigma-free, sex-positive, and designed to help individuals understand, discuss and take action to protect their sexual health.
Avert is also content and social media partner for Young Africa Live, which uses a WhatsApp chatbot, Facebook and Instagram to reach young people in South Africa with clear, trustworthy and engaging content to help them make informed choices and engage in self-care to improve their sexual and mental health.
The content on Be in the KNOW and Young Africa Live is developed through co-creation and user engagement with our target audiences, to understand and get personal testimony on their knowledge needs, the barriers they face and how to make HIV and sexual health information and services better.
Co-creation allows us to produce content that has real-world impact – supporting our target audience to look after their health, increasing their health literacy and capacity for self-care as well as encouraging them to engage with services when they need to.
Avert is a member of the Self-Care Trailblazer Group (SCTG), a global coalition dedicated to expanding the safe and effective practice of self-care so that individuals can better manage their own health to improve health outcomes
Photo credit: Gulshan Khan/Avert/Ikusasa Lethu. Photos are used for illustrative purposes. They do not imply health status or behaviour.