1. Review the Community-based mental health project, 2006-2010; 2. Explore lessons learnt, existing gaps and challenges in the implementation of the Community-based mental health project, 2006-2010; 3. Recommend specific directional strategies for the community-based mental health program by 2020.

Vietnam is in a strong demographic transitional period. Since 2005 the Vietnamese population has changed from young population structure with median age of 25.5% to the threshold of aging population. The elderly rate keeps increasing quickly, from 8.2% in 1999 to 9.45% in 2007 and 9.9% in 2008. According to UN forecast, the elderly percentage would reach 26% in 2050. According to previous population forecasts, Vietnam would have aging population by 2015. However the facts have shown that the Vietnamese population would enter aging period in 2010, 5 years earlier than forecasted. The quickly increasing number of elderly will require a considerable number of manpower to provide support and ensure normal living for elderly. The “elderly respect” norm remains its value, recognized as one of the essential and important cultural value of the Vietnamese peoples. In fact the number of members who must work for earring living account for the majority of the family and the above cultural norm has been neglected and less concerned compared with the past. Therefore, recently in Vietnam there have appeared various types of elderly care services, especially private settings with certain achievements. Due to cultural norm and value systems, this remains a controversial issues. Thus, conducting a study at grassroots level on “Understanding the perception, attitude and living needs in elderly nursing centers in Vietnam” to find out the community needs of living in elderly nursing centers is needed to recommend effective governance measures, promote the development of such service types, improve service quality, socialize and mobilize participation of the whole community and society in elderly care and role promotion.

To improve the quality of Vietnamese population, in Chapter 3 on quality of population, Population Ordinance in 2003, Article 23 (reproduction support measures) stipulates: “The Government encourage and create conditions for young male and female to have health check before getting married…”. This shows that the Government has been implementing policies to encourage and support young man and woman to have health check before marriage to screen genetic diseases, ensure healthy newborns and contribute to improve the health, physical status of the future generation. According to this regulation, pre-marital health check is being implemented in encouragement angle. The Vietnam’s Law on marriage and family, article 13 on “Marriage registration settlement”; Article 18, Government Decree 158/2005/NĐ-CP on registration and management of residence and Circular 01/2008/TT-BTP, which provides implementation guidelines for Government Decree 158/2005/NĐ-CP, in the part on marriage registration procedures, there is no regulation on health check paper submission when registering marriage.

To provide evidence for the effective implementation of the Prime Ministerial Decision 38/QD-TTg dated 8/1/2008 on “collaboration and cooperation in prevention cross-border HIV transmission”, the Health Strategy and Policy Institute (HSPI), MOH Vietnam cooperated with the Center for HIV/AIDS/STDs Prevention and Control, Department of Preventive Medicine, Ministry of Health of Laos to conduct the joint study “HIV transmission in Viet Nam – Lao PDR border area: Current situation and solutions”. The study was carried out in March to December 2009, funded by the Coordination Office of the Greater Mekong Sub-Region Communicable Disease Control Project..

Objectives: 1. Explore child eye care awareness, attitude and practice; 2. Describe access to child eye care; 3. Recommend solutions to improve behavioral change communication for child eye care and ophthalmic care in general in Thuathien-Hue province.

In 2006, the German government extended a financial grant to Vietnam through the German reconstruction banking group (KfW) to implement the Project “Strengthening HIV/AIDS/STI preventive interventions in Vietnam” for a 3-year cycle of 2006-2009. Part of the project activities involve targeted social marketing of condoms (OK brand) via traditional and non-traditional channels in 15 project provinces. The target group was the general public, young people, female sex workers, sex workers’ clients, injecting drug users (IDUs) and mobile workers. After five years into operation, to measure behavioral change in condom use among the target groups, this post-intervention study “Condom use knowledge, attitude and behavior among female sex workers (FSW), FSW clients, mobile groups and IDUs” was conducted in Nam Dinh, Quang Binh and Dak Lak provinces. The study was done by the Health Strategy and Policy Institute from September to December 2011.

The survey on maternal and newborn mortality in Vietnam period 2006-2007 is carried out in April and May 2009 with the objectives: (1) Identify maternal mortality rate (MMR), newborn mortality rate (NMR) in Vietnam in 2006-2007, compare the difference between mountainous and plain areas; (2) Describe direct, indirect causes and factors related to MMR and NMR in Vietnam, compare the difference between mountainous and plain areas; and (3) Make recommendations to reduce MMR and NMR in Vietnam.

Describe the current status of the provincial and district public health care network in five Central Highland provinces; Analyze the health services delivery capacity of the public health care network at provincial and district levels in the five Central Highland provinces