Community health workers (CHWs) provide last-mile healthcare services but face challenges due to limited medical knowledge and training. This paper describes the design, deployment, and evaluation of ASHABot, an LLM-powered, experts-in-the-loop, WhatsApp-based chatbot to address the information needs of CHWs in India. Through interviews with CHWs and their supervisors and log analysis, we examine factors affecting their engagement with ASHABot, and ASHABot’s role in addressing CHWs’ informational needs. We found that ASHABot provided a private channel for CHWs to ask rudimentary and sensitive questions they hesitated to ask supervisors. CHWs trusted the information they received on ASHABot and treated it as an authoritative resource. CHWs’ supervisors expanded their knowledge by contributing answers to questions ASHABot failed to answer, but were concerned about demands on their workload and increased accountability. We emphasize positioning LLMs as supplemental fallible resources within the community healthcare ecosystem, instead of as replacements for supervisor support.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Community health workers (CHWs) provide last-mile healthcare services but face challenges due to limited medical knowledge and training. This paper describes the design, deployment, and evaluation of ASHABot, an LLM-powered, experts-in-the-loop, WhatsApp-based chatbot to address the information needs of CHWs in India. Through interviews with CHWs and their supervisors and log analysis, we examine factors […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"msr-url-field":"","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_classifai_error":"","msr-author-ordering":null,"msr_publishername":"","msr_publisher_other":"","msr_booktitle":"","msr_chapter":"","msr_edition":"","msr_editors":"","msr_how_published":"","msr_isbn":"","msr_issue":"","msr_journal":"","msr_number":"","msr_organization":"","msr_pages_string":"","msr_page_range_start":"","msr_page_range_end":"","msr_series":"","msr_volume":"","msr_copyright":"","msr_conference_name":"CHI 2025","msr_doi":"","msr_arxiv_id":"","msr_s2_paper_id":"","msr_mag_id":"","msr_pubmed_id":"","msr_other_authors":"","msr_other_contributors":"","msr_speaker":"","msr_award":"","msr_affiliation":"","msr_institution":"","msr_host":"","msr_version":"","msr_duration":"","msr_original_fields_of_study":null,"msr_release_tracker_id":"","msr_s2_match_type":"","msr_citation_count_updated":"","msr_published_date":"2025-4-30","msr_highlight_text":"","msr_notes":"","msr_longbiography":"","msr_publicationurl":"","msr_external_url":"","msr_secondary_video_url":"","msr_conference_url":"https:\/\/programs.sigchi.org\/chi\/2025\/","msr_journal_url":"","msr_s2_pdf_url":"","msr_year":0,"msr_citation_count":0,"msr_influential_citations":0,"msr_reference_count":0,"msr_s2_match_confidence":0,"msr_microsoftintellectualproperty":true,"msr_s2_open_access":false,"msr_s2_author_ids":[],"msr_pub_ids":[],"msr_hide_image_in_river":null,"footnotes":""},"msr-research-highlight":[],"research-area":[13556,13554,13553],"msr-publication-type":[193716],"msr-publisher":[],"msr-focus-area":[],"msr-locale":[268875],"msr-post-option":[],"msr-field-of-study":[252883,246691,248485],"msr-conference":[260644],"msr-journal":[],"msr-impact-theme":[261673],"msr-pillar":[],"class_list":["post-1085778","msr-research-item","type-msr-research-item","status-publish","hentry","msr-research-area-artificial-intelligence","msr-research-area-human-computer-interaction","msr-research-area-medical-health-genomics","msr-locale-en_us","msr-field-of-study-chatbot","msr-field-of-study-computer-science","msr-field-of-study-human-computer-interaction"],"msr_publishername":"","msr_edition":"","msr_affiliation":"","msr_published_date":"2025-4-30","msr_host":"","msr_duration":"","msr_version":"","msr_speaker":"","msr_other_contributors":"","msr_booktitle":"","msr_pages_string":"","msr_chapter":"","msr_isbn":"","msr_journal":"","msr_volume":"","msr_number":"","msr_editors":"","msr_series":"","msr_issue":"","msr_organization":"","msr_how_published":"","msr_notes":"","msr_highlight_text":"","msr_release_tracker_id":"","msr_original_fields_of_study":"","msr_download_urls":"","msr_external_url":"","msr_secondary_video_url":"","msr_longbiography":"","msr_microsoftintellectualproperty":1,"msr_main_download":"","msr_publicationurl":"","msr_doi":"","msr_publication_uploader":[{"type":"url","viewUrl":"false","id":"false","title":"https:\/\/arxiv.org\/abs\/2409.10913","label_id":"243109","label":0}],"msr_related_uploader":"","msr_citation_count":0,"msr_citation_count_updated":"","msr_s2_paper_id":"","msr_influential_citations":0,"msr_reference_count":0,"msr_arxiv_id":"","msr_s2_author_ids":[],"msr_s2_open_access":false,"msr_s2_pdf_url":null,"msr_attachments":[],"msr-author-ordering":[{"type":"guest","value":"pragnya-ramjee","user_id":1080645,"rest_url":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/microsoft-research\/v1\/researchers?person=pragnya-ramjee"},{"type":"text","value":"Mehak Chhokar","user_id":0,"rest_url":false},{"type":"text","value":"Bhuvan Sachdeva","user_id":0,"rest_url":false},{"type":"text","value":"Mahendra Meena","user_id":0,"rest_url":false},{"type":"text","value":"Hamid Abdullah","user_id":0,"rest_url":false},{"type":"text","value":"Aditya Vashistha","user_id":0,"rest_url":false},{"type":"text","value":"Ruchit Nagar","user_id":0,"rest_url":false},{"type":"user_nicename","value":"Mohit Jain","user_id":38769,"rest_url":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/microsoft-research\/v1\/researchers?person=Mohit Jain"}],"msr_impact_theme":["Health"],"msr_research_lab":[199562],"msr_event":[1134700],"msr_group":[],"msr_project":[979329,979335],"publication":[],"video":[],"msr-tool":[1174084],"msr_publication_type":"inproceedings","related_content":{"projects":[{"ID":979329,"post_title":"Healthcare Research at MSR India","post_name":"healthcare","post_type":"msr-project","post_date":"2023-11-26 21:16:53","post_modified":"2026-05-30 02:56:58","post_status":"publish","permalink":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/project\/healthcare\/","post_excerpt":"At Microsoft Research Lab India, we conduct a variety of healthcare related research, including smartphone-based low-cost diagnostics, generative AI chatbots to support the healthcare ecosystem, and promote mental well-being of employees.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-project\/979329"}]}},{"ID":979335,"post_title":"HealthBots: Expert-in-the-loop Chatbots","post_name":"health-bots","post_type":"msr-project","post_date":"2023-11-26 21:00:15","post_modified":"2026-05-30 02:54:41","post_status":"publish","permalink":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/project\/health-bots\/","post_excerpt":"CataractBot, ASHABot, DRBot, OncoBot Patients and their caregivers often experience anxiety before undergoing medical treatment. They require timely, trustworthy, detailed, and accurate information about their condition and care. To address this need, we designed and developed a family of HealthBots powered by state-of-the-art generative AI models grounded in clinician-provided knowledge bases. These systems assist patients and caregivers in obtaining reliable answers to their medical queries throughout the treatment journey. A key aspect of our approach…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-project\/979335"}]}}]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-item\/1085778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-item"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/msr-research-item"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-item\/1085778\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1085781,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-item\/1085778\/revisions\/1085781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1085778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"msr-research-highlight","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-highlight?post=1085778"},{"taxonomy":"msr-research-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-area?post=1085778"},{"taxonomy":"msr-publication-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-publication-type?post=1085778"},{"taxonomy":"msr-publisher","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-publisher?post=1085778"},{"taxonomy":"msr-focus-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-focus-area?post=1085778"},{"taxonomy":"msr-locale","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-locale?post=1085778"},{"taxonomy":"msr-post-option","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-post-option?post=1085778"},{"taxonomy":"msr-field-of-study","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-field-of-study?post=1085778"},{"taxonomy":"msr-conference","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-conference?post=1085778"},{"taxonomy":"msr-journal","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-journal?post=1085778"},{"taxonomy":"msr-impact-theme","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-impact-theme?post=1085778"},{"taxonomy":"msr-pillar","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-pillar?post=1085778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}