NutriAI: AI-Powered Child Malnutrition Assessment in Low-Resource Environments

NutriAI: AI-Powered Child Malnutrition Assessment in Low-Resource Environments

Misaal Khan, Shivang Agarwal, Mayank Vatsa, Richa Singh, Kuldeep Singh

Proceedings of the Thirty-Second International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence
AI for Good - Projects. Pages 6378-6385. https://doi.org/10.24963/ijcai.2023/708

Malnutrition among infants and young children is a pervasive public health concern, particularly in developing countries where resources are limited. Millions of children globally suffer from malnourishment and its complications1. Despite the best efforts of governments and organizations, malnourishment persists and remains a leading cause of morbidity and mortality among children under five. Physical measurements, such as weight, height, middle-upper-arm-circumference (muac), and head circumference are commonly used to assess the nutritional status of children. However, this approach can be resource-intensive and challenging to carry out on a large scale. In this research, we are developing NutriAI, a low-cost solution that leverages small sample size classification approach to detect malnutrition by analyzing 2D images of the subjects in multiple poses. The proposed solution will not only reduce the workload of health workers but also provide a more efficient means of monitoring the nutritional status of children. On the dataset prepared as part of this research, the baseline results highlight that the modern deep learning approaches can facilitate malnutrition detection via anthropometric indicators in the presence of diversity with respect to age, gender, physical characteristics, and accessories including clothing.
Keywords:
AI for Good - Projects: Computer Vision
AI for Good - Projects: Machine Learning