On Tuesday, August 15, 2023, in recognition of International Youth Day, ICAP’s Grand Rounds webinar series presented on HIV, mental health, and beyond: How research could protect youth in a rapidly changing world.

HIV remains one of the greatest threats to youth, but now exists in a constellation of risks and priorities, such as other pandemics, mental health, violence, and climate change. How can research help to protect young people in this rapidly changing world? Two presenters from University of Oxford and University of Cape Town examined new evidence of a UN concept of development accelerators – interventions and policies that impact multiple health and social outcomes simultaneously – with growing evidence across Africa. The presenters explored new research that attempts to make services more scalable and feasible to deliver, considering their own evidence-base in relation to challenges raised by policymakers seeking to support young people in an increasingly complex world.

Presenters:

Lucie Cluver, professor, Oxford University and the University of Cape Town
Lucie Cluver is a professor at Oxford University and at the University of Cape Town. She works closely with a superb team of partners and students. Together, they collaborate with the South African government, UNICEF, World Food Programme, UNAIDS, USAID-PEPFAR and CDC, UNDP, IAS, the World Health Organization and Global Fund, End Violence, and other international NGOs, to provide evidence that can improve the lives of children and adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa. Professor Cluver co-leads the COVID-19 emergency child abuse prevention response, which has reached over 210 million people in 198 countries with parenting support during the pandemic (www.covid19parenting.com).

Elona Toska, associate professor, University of Cape Town, Research Associate, University of Oxford
Associate professor Elona Toska is an adolescent health researcher at the Centre for Social Science Research at the University of Cape Town and a research associate at the University of Oxford. Her research focuses on identifying ways to support adolescents and young people, including adolescents living with HIV and adolescent parents, to have safe and healthy relationships with people in their lives: their children, partners, caregivers, teachers, and healthcare providers. She works closely with colleagues at UNICEF, UNFPA, UNAIDS, The Global Fund, USAID/PEPFAR, and government partners in Cameroon, Eswatini, Kenya, Lesotho, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.