Project News

As the burden of diseases shifts from communicable to non-communicable diseases (NCDs), developing proactive health promotion and disease prevention (PP) services becomes more significant. The GLO+UHC project organized an online workshop to share experiences of Thailand and Japan to strengthen health promotion for prevention of NCDs in local settings on 20 July 2022.

In Thailand, National Health Security Office (NHSO) covers expenses of PP services incl. health-checkups for all Thai citizens. The first lecturer from NHSO explained the whole picture of PP including service delivery system and payment mechanism to increase incentives for health facilities in providing PP services. The second lecture was on details about matching funds between NHSO and local authorities including Community Health Fund and Provincial Rehabilitation Fund, which is utilized to promote local participation in PP.

On the other hand, Japan has been promoting PP programs in an integrated manner with the high-level policy direction such as "Health Japan 21" set by the central government, and implemented at local levels. Two lecturers from National Institute of Public Health shared Japan's national system/mechanism which encourages and supports local governments to implement PP programs effectively, as well as roles of local governments in PP and allocation of human resources and their capacity building.

Around 40 Thai participants from NHSO's headquarter and regional offices, and other organizations incl. International Health Policy Program eagerly learned the Japan's system especially on budgeting and incentives for local authorities while the Japanese resource persons also showed high interest on the Thai system. Active Q&A and discussion deepened the understanding of each system.

The GLO+UHC project will seek further collaboration between the two countries for strengthening health promotion at local level.