Bridging the chasm: Leveraging digital innovation for youth SRHR resilience amid climate shocks in Mashonaland East, Zimbabwe

Context: The climate crisis disproportionately affects Sub-Saharan Africa, with rural Zimbabwean communities suffering from severe, recurrent droughts and exacerbating economic shocks. Adverse sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) outcomes are directly caused by environmental degradation in Mashonaland East's climate-vulnerable districts, such as Kadzere village, Munamba, Uzumba and Nhakiwa. Climate-related food insecurity forces households to use regressive coping mechanisms, resulting in a disproportionate 44% child marriage rate among rural adolescent girls nationwide. In addition to severely accelerating transactional sex, gender-based violence (GBV) and school dropouts, environmental stressors also weaken healthcare supply chains and limit access to critical services.

Approach/Methodology: In order to close the gap between health equity and climate adaptation, this paper assesses an integrated, rights-based digital intervention. This strategy, which is focused on the CHEI AeroHealth initiative, combines localized, community-anchored frameworks with youth-centric digital health innovation to provide trustworthy SRHR information and preserve service continuity during public health disruptions caused by climate change. The model guarantees that vulnerable, underprivileged adolescents maintain bodily autonomy and access to health literacy despite geographic and economic isolation brought on by climate shocks by integrating digital tools into Mashonaland East's established community trust structures.

Key Findings and Results: Our results show that treating public health and climate resilience as separate fields exposes young people to significant risks during environmental emergencies. On the other hand, vulnerability is effectively reduced when SRHR is incorporated into community climate adaptation plans. The targeted rural communities' digital engagement and health literacy requests have increased by about 31% since December 2025, according to the AeroHealth platform. This increase emphasizes the vital role of digital platforms as adaptive infrastructure, overcoming physical obstacles brought on by severe weather to offer continuous access to safe GBV reporting channels, gender-transformative health education and contraceptive awareness.

In conclusion, without ensuring bodily autonomy, true climate justice cannot be attained. Policies for climate adaptation must explicitly incorporate SRHR protections for women and youth, going beyond agricultural frameworks. In climate-vulnerable areas, the AeroHealth model in Uzumba and the surrounding areas shows how intersectional, tech-driven and community-led systems provide a scalable, evidence-based model for achieving equitable health outcomes and creating sustainable community resilience.