Abstract

Introduction

Thailand ratified the World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) on November 8, 2004. The WHO FCTC requires all parties to inform all persons of the health consequences of tobacco consumption and exposure to tobacco smoke. Each party has agreed to develop, implement and evaluate effective tobacco control programs to measure progress in reaching the goals of the WHO FCTC.

Methods

The Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS) was developed to provide data on youth tobacco use to countries for their development of youth-based tobacco control programs. Data in this report can be used as baseline measures for future evaluation of the tobacco control programs implemented by the Ministry of Public Health.

Results

Overall, about 1 in 10 Thai students are current smokers, this number including 4 times more boys than girls (17% versus 3.9%). Almost 2 in 10 Thai students start smoking before the age of 10, and almost 7 in 10 students are reported to have been exposed to smoke from others in public places. About 4 in 10 students are reported to have an object with a cigarette brand logo on it.

Conclusion

The key for Thailand is to implement and enforce the provisions on indirect tobacco advertising, smoking in public places, selling tobacco to youths under 18 years of age, and to use the data from the GYTS to monitor progress toward achieving the goals of the WHO FCTC. When these goals are met, tobacco consumption and exposure in Thailand will have declined substantially.

This study aimed to investigate alcoholic beverages drinking and predictive factors among female students. The participants were 377 subjects from 3 high schools in a tourist province, of Thailand. Data collection was done through self-administered questionnaire. Scales of the questionnaire had reliability coefficients ranging from 0.84 – 0.88. The data were analyzed by using descriptive and inferential statistics. The findings revealed as follows. About half (51%) of them have ever drunk and 10.5% of drinkers have drunk once a week. In addition, 15.6% of drinkers began their first drink when they were under 10 years old. Risk factors for alcohol consumption of female student were age, GPA, drinker in family, peer pressure, advertisement and accessibility to alcoholic beverages while protective factors were perception of drinking impacts on family and moral values. Students who have a drinking family member were 4.6 times more likely to drink than those who do not have.

Efforts to reduce the current and projected harm caused by tobacco use in the ASEAN countries are urgently needed. ASEAN countries need to expand their national comprehensive tobacco prevention and control programs and enforce those laws already passed. Without this effort little reduction can be expected in the burden of chronic diseases and tobacco-related mortality.

No abstract

Background The aim of this study is to monitor the concept of ‘leaving no one behind’ in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to track the implications of the mobilization of health care resources by the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) of Sudan. Methods A cross-sectional study was used to monitor ‘leaving no one behind’ in NHIF by analyzing the secondary data of the information system for the year 2016. The study categorized the catchment areas of health care centers (HCCS) according to district administrative divisions, which are neighborhood, subdistrict, district, and zero. The District Division Administrative Disaggregation Data (DDADD) framework was developed and investigated with the use of descriptive statistics, maps of Sudan, the Mann-Whitney test, the Kruskal-Wallis test and health equity catchment indicators. SPSS ver. 18 and EndNote X8 were also used. Results The findings show that the NHIF has mobilized HCCs according to coverage of the insured population. This mobilization protected the insured poor in high-coverage insured population districts and left those living in very low-coverage districts behind. The Mann-Whitney test presented a significant median difference in the utilization rate between catchment areas (P value < 0.001). The results showed that the utilization rate of the insured poor who accessed health care centers by neighborhood was higher than that of the insured poor who accessed by more than neighborhood in each state. The Kruskal-Wallis test of the cost of health care services per capita in each catchment area showed a difference (P value < 0.001) in the median between neighborhoods. The cost of health care services in low-coverage insured population districts was higher than that in high-coverage insured population districts. Conclusion The DDADD framework identified the inequitable distribution of health care services in low-density population districts leaves insured poor behind. Policymakers should restructure the equation of health insurance schemes based on equity and probability of illness, to distribute health care services according to needs and equity, and to remobilize resources towards districts left behind.