Project News

Thailand's Universal Coverage Scheme (UCS), which largely contributes to Thailand's Universal Health Coverage (UHC), has achieved substantial progress in promoting equitable access and use of health services. Despite these achievements, many challenges lie ahead such as disagreement between care providers and care purchasers, disagreement between the health sector and the finance sector, and existing social inequality with regards to all the social determinants of health that go beyond the authority of the health sector. Many countries are also facing the similar challenges.

The Workshop for social epidemiology and social marketing was held to strengthen the skills of health professionals and practitioners in social marketing and health communication that could serve as the effective tools for creating a productive dialogue among key stakeholders in the health community.

For this three-day workshop in June, two prominent professors from Harvard University, Prof. Ichiro Kawachi and Prof. Kasisomayajula Viswanath, and the other distinguished speakers were invited to provide capacity buildings for effective health communication via social marketing approach and analyzing and assessing the health disparity situation and possible solutions from the standpoint of social epidemiology and behavioral economics.

About 60 participants actively engaged in this intensive workshop consisting of lectures and hands-on group work of case-study. The participants well received the workshop and mostly commented that the knowledge and experience of the workshop were useful and could be directly applied or could be adapted to work.

The project starts working to hold the 2nd workshop/symposium next year.