Closing the gap: AI-enabled Code monitoring digital platform for breastfeeding protection in Mexico

Source: Alive & Thrive

The theme of this year’s World Breastfeeding Week is "Closing the Gap." One major gap in breastfeeding protection is the lack of systematic and ongoing Code monitoring and enforcement, which has become even more challenging in the complex digital environment. Building on the vast body of work on Code monitoring in Mexico, a national Code Monitoring Digital Platform is being developed in partnership with UNICEF Mexico and a number of national civil society organizations to capitalize on the capabilities offered by innovative technologies.

The platform will feature the novel artificial intelligence-enabled Virtual Violations Detector (VIVID) to help monitor inappropriate marketing of commercial milk formula and related products on digital platforms. Human-supervised automated detection and classification will transform resource-intensive tasks into more manageable tasks. A key feature of VIVID is integrating monitoring findings with an action tracker to support enforcement. A crowdsourced online monitoring form will be developed to cover the non-digital settings, mobilizing health workers and the public to get involved in Code monitoring as civic participation. The platform will also serve as a dynamic advocacy e-hub for disseminating monitoring findings and Code-related technical resources.