ASIA
Vietnam

The Population Council’s mission in Vietnam is to conduct research on reproductive health and contraceptive choice to provide a greater understanding and awareness of the needs and concerns of Vietnamese women and men.

This mission is being accomplished through research and training of individuals and institutions to address critical population, family planning, and reproductive health issues.

All Population Council projects in Vietnam are formal partnerships between the Council and government agencies and research institutions.

Thus the Council’s research projects in this country also aim to create new practical knowledge and build organizational capacity.

Recent research includes testing new models of HIV prevention among vulnerable populations, including mobile construction workers, young garment workers, disadvantaged youth, and the Khmer ethnic minority. Continuing the Council’s record of ground-breaking research on gender-based violence in Vietnam, the first project to train health providers to screen, counsel, and treat the physical and emotional effects of victims was initiated.

Other programs included a study of adolescent livelihoods; a study of natural family planning (which accounts for nearly 20 percent of family planning in Vietnam); and operations research (OR) to assess the quality as medical abortion services. The OR project also tested a home administration option which was approved for wider use by the Ministry of Health based on the findings from an eight-site Council study.

Quality of care
Focusing on high quality of care is critical to sustaining family planning interventions. Clients will not attend facilities that do not offer good services. The Council informs the national family planning program about the elements of quality of care and assists program managers in testing and implementing projects that embody this approach.

The quality of care framework, developed by Council staff, has been introduced at the policy level to create awareness among senior government officials of the need to consider clients' needs and perspectives. The framework is also valuable to program managers and providers in local institutions in training, research, and demonstration projects.

Reproductive health
The Population Council assists the Vietnamese government in testing reproductive health interventions and incorporating them into current maternal and child health and family planning policies, programs and research. The reproductive health program objectives are to develop intervention research and training and to provide research results to individuals at all levels in the public and private sectors. The current agenda addresses a broad range of reproductive concerns including youth reproductive health, male involvement, reproductive tract infections (RTIs), sexuality, violence, and sexual harassment.

Population and development
The Vietnamese government is committed to understanding how demographic pressures affect the sustainability of economic growth. The Council supports the government in its efforts to develop efficient, sustainable, high-quality reproductive health services. The program focuses on major policy issues, including demographic trends, health care financing, gender, and the economic transition.

In addition, the Council is helping to build human and institutional capacity through a Master of Public Health fellowship program in the United States. Since 1994, the program has sponsored 40 local health professionals in undertaking graduate training at leading U.S. schools of public health. The returned fellows are working in a variety of institutions and programs in population and reproductive health.

The Council recruited and selected the final cohort of 15 fellows under its Public Health Fellowship Program. The last group of Ford Foundation-supported Reproductive Health, Sexuality and Social Sciences fellows were selected in 2003. By 2005, more than 120 health professionals will have obtained master’s degrees in the United States, Europe, and Australia under the auspices of these two fellowship projects.

Population Council staff continue to work with and support the fellows when they return to Vietnam.

Projects

• Findings from Recent and Ongoing Youth and Family Studies

• Horizons projects

  • Expanding Workplace HIV/STI Prevention Activities for Migrant Construction Workers
  • Reducing HIV/AIDS-related Stigma and Discrimination in the Health Care Setting in Vietnam

Publications/Resources on Vietnam

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See Also

• Vietnam Fellowship Program

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This page updated 3 April 2008

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