JA PreventNCD is co-organizing the scientific session “Making WHO European Region the healthiest online environment for children: restrict harmful marketing”, along with WHO Euro and EUPHA, at the European Public Health Conference in Lisbon, November 2024.
Marketing exposure, particularly towards children, remains a pervasive challenge, posing a significant threat to children's health and well-being. Despite WHO recommendations, few countries in the WHO European Region have introduced mandatory policies restricting marketing of unhealthy products to children. Furthermore, traditional monitoring tools struggle to keep up with automated and personalized advertisements, making reliable monitoring mechanisms and innovative tools urgently needed. The WHO Regional Office for Europe developed the KidAd platform to address this gap for a tool allowing objective and standardized monitoring of children’s exposure to digital advertising.
Regional Adviser for Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity, Special Initiative on NCDs and Innovation, WHO Regional Office For Europe, Kremlin Wickramasinghe (Denmark) and Amandine Garde (EUPHA-LAW), Professor of Law at the University of Liverpool, United Kingdom, will co-chair this 60-minute scientific session.
Among the speakers, Olga Zhiteneva, from WHO Europe will present Innovative tools from WHO Europe to protect children from digital marketing of unhealthy products, in particular the KidAd platform, a pioneering tool developed to address these modern challenges by providing an objective product to monitor various marketing materials. The Lead of Task 5.6, Maria João Gregório from the Portuguese Directorate-General of Health, will give an overview on Collaborative efforts of the Joint Action PreventNCD and the WHO Europe to protect children from harmful marketing, focusing on the concrete collaborative actions to support the implementation of the marketing regulation:
- On JA work with the Member States and especially presidency countries, to allow for the discussions on the development of the EU regulation for reduction of the harmful marketing;
- On the EU stakeholders positions regarding marketing regulation;
- On the collaborative actions in scaling up the KidAd app to detect alcohol, tobacco and nicotine-containing products marketing.
Finally, Iveta Nagyova, from EUPHA, will identify evidence-based behavioural strategies such as nudges, choice architecture, and social norms that can influence healthier choices, thereby reducing the impact of harmful marketing, with the presentation Leveraging Behavioural Insights to Create Healthier Online Environment for Children.