SAFEMOM study finds Ada improved safe and appropriate health-seeking behavior among pregnant women and mothers in South Africa, with the greatest impact among those facing the most barriers to care.
BERLIN, June 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Ada Health, a leading clinical AI company that helps people understand their symptoms and navigate care safely and efficiently, today announced the publication of a peer-reviewed study in Nature Health demonstrating that use of its symptom assessment improved safe and appropriate health-seeking behaviors among pregnant women and mothers in South Africa.
The study, Can Mobile Health Tools Increase Safe Health-Seeking Behaviour? A Mixed-Methods Exploration, conducted in partnership with Reach Digital Health, PATH, The Rockefeller Foundation, Citizen Surveys, and the South African National Department of Health, evaluated the integration of Ada into MomConnect, the South African government’s nationwide WhatsApp-based maternal health platform.
The study enrolled 968 participants. After using Ada, safe health-seeking behavior rose by nearly a third with appropriate care-seeking, meaning women seeking the right level of care for their symptoms, rising by more than 40%. Undertriage, the primary safety concern in self-assessment, fell significantly.
The share of participants who actually sought care jumped from 17% to 43% by the one-week follow-up and uncertainty about what to do dropped from nearly 1 in 5 participants to 1 in 17 immediately after assessment. An independent panel of senior physicians reviewed Ada’s recommendations and rated them safe in 98% of cases.
The study extends Ada’s recent NEJM AI publication, evaluating clinical AI in Portugal’s private healthcare system, to a government-led platform in a low- and middle-income setting.
“Ada has invested deeply in optimizing our model for maternal and pediatric health, areas that have long been underserved. Seeing our intelligence layer translate into safer decisions and more appropriate actions as well as the identification of serious, life-threatening conditions among women who weren’t even planning to seek care is exactly what we built this technology to do.”
– Dr. Claire Novorol, Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer, Ada Health
Key Findings
- Change in care-seeking behavior: Nearly 1 in 2 participants changed their care-seeking intentions after using Ada. Of those who had initially planned to manage symptoms at home, 4 in 10 subsequently sought care, including 6.8% at emergency level.
- Narrowing the gap for underserved populations: Roughly 90% of participants faced at least three barriers to healthcare access, with 64% being unemployed and half earning below approximately USD 85 per month. Before using Ada, these women were significantly more likely to report unsafe intentions than those with fewer barriers. After using Ada, the difference was no longer statistically significant.
- Identification of potentially life-threatening conditions: Of participants who received treatment, over half had not planned to seek care before using Ada. Among participants who received a diagnosis, 84% were newly identified conditions. Nineteen participants were diagnosed with hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, a leading cause of maternal mortality in South Africa, of whom seven were hospitalized and one required surgery. Other serious pregnancy-related diagnoses included threatened miscarriage and intrauterine growth restriction, alongside infections such as HIV, meningitis, pneumonia, and tuberculosis.
“We see every day what happens when women don’t have access to timely, reliable health information. This study gives us the scientific evidence to say, with confidence, that integrating clinical AI into a platform like MomConnect changes decisions and, ultimately, outcomes. That is what rigorous, real-world research in low-resource settings should look like.”
— Debbie Rogers, CEO, Reach Digital Health
The study’s publication in Nature Health adds to more than 50 independent and peer-reviewed publications demonstrating Ada’s real-world clinical impact.
About Ada Health
Ada Health combines clinical expertise and advanced AI to help people and health organizations act on insights earlier. Built by doctors, scientists, and engineers, Ada applies probabilistic reasoning technology to a medical expert-curated knowledge base that transforms real-world data into actionable guidance, empowering individuals to understand their symptoms and helping partners across healthcare and life sciences deliver more timely, personalized care. With over 50 million assessments and 50+ independent peer-reviewed publications, Ada’s assessment is trusted by leading health systems, and pharmaceutical companies around the world. Learn more at about.ada.com.
About Reach Digital Health
Reach Digital Health is a nonprofit organization that designs and delivers digital health programs to extend the reach of health systems and improve access to care for underserved communities. Working in partnership with governments and leading organizations, Reach uses mobile technologies – including SMS, WhatsApp and USSD – to deliver accessible, personalised health information and services at scale. Its flagship program, MomConnect, is one of the largest maternal health platforms in the world, supporting millions of women across South Africa. Reach’s work focuses on strengthening health systems, enabling informed health decisions, and improving health outcomes through user-centered digital innovation.
Media Contact
Shireen Saxena
VP External Affairs and Chief of Staff, Ada Health
press@ada.com
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SOURCE Ada Health
