New interactive tool to bridge Africa's critical data gap for sustainable development.

Widespread mortality of warm-water coral reefs underway, as world reaches first tipping point

Early bird registrations - with savings of up to 53% - are closing on 20 October 2025 for delegates wanting to attend the 13th World Conference of Science (WCSJ 2025). The Conference takes place from 1 to 5 December 2025 in Pretoria, South Africa. 

The WCSJ is a biennial gathering of the world’s science journalists — a space to sharpen their skills, exchange ideas, and explore how best to tell the stories that shape our shared future. Science journalists play a vital role in keeping the public informed about the issues that matter most, from climate change and health crises to the challenges of misinformation, shrinking funding, and reporting amid global conflict.

Dr Bianca Moffett at the SAMRC/Wits-Agincourt Unit leads the AfriCAT project, which entails building a first-of-its-kind adaptive testing tool to inform measurement-based mental healthcare for depression and anxiety among adolescents in Africa.

The AfriCAT tool is based on Computerised Adaptive Testing, a novel approach to mental health assessment. Unlike most traditional assessments, which ask a standard set of questions to all users, Computerised Adaptive Tests are based on advanced statistical and machine learning methods, which use a person’s initial responses to select the next best questions. The goal of adaptive testing is to use as few questions as possible while still making an exact assessment, tailored to the individual.

Health funders would likely have a better return on investment and a stronger position in the global funding crisis if Africans had greater decision-making influence and voting power in global health institutions.

This is an assertion in an article published on 15 September 2025 in the prestigious BMJ Global Health journal.