SuSastho.AI: A multimodal medical copilot for adolescents using evidence-based medicine and large language models
S. Aarif Ahamed, Moinul H. Chowdhury, Marzia Zaman, Abhishek Agarwala, Md. Abdullah Al Mashud, Tariqul, Tareq Al Muntasir, Rifat Rahman, Rifat Shahriyar, Farhana Sarker, Khondaker A. Mamun · Informatics in Medicine Unlocked · 2025
Adolescents in Bangladesh face serious sexual, reproductive, and mental health challenges due to cultural stigma, poverty, and limited healthcare infrastructure. Within the country, 63% of adolescents are deprived of essential sexual and reproductive health services, and only 13% receive mental health support. Adolescents living in urban slums and with disabilities face additional challenges in receiving reliable health information. This limited access exposes them to a high risk of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), unintended pregnancies, and serious mental health issues. Addressing these challenges, our study introduces SuSastho.AI, a healthcare copilot providing access to reliable health information to adolescents. We utilized large language models, along with Evidence-Based Medicine, retrieval-augmented generation, and a clinically validated dataset to provide evidence-based responses, supporting both voice and text-based interactions. Clinical evaluation of a pilot study shows our method reduces incorrect responses by 26.9% and increases response correctness by 16.1% compared to other methods. It achieved an accuracy rate of 86.7% when specifically evaluated based on available knowledge. While the responses are mostly consistent with up-to-date medical practices, occasional, less precise responses highlight the need for further refinement. Participants reported overall positive feedback, where 87% found answers to their questions, and 90.7% found responses relevant. Our results show that SuSastho.AI can provide reliable and evidence-based information while being an affordable way to support traditional healthcare systems with a high potential to transform digital health. The study sets an example as an evidence-based healthcare copilot to support adolescents and lays the foundation for future research where evidence-based tools overcome social barriers.