Vietnam

Country team for INFORMAS in Vietnam is lead by the director of the National Institute of Nutrition – Le Danh Tuyen MD., MSc., PhD, Assoc.Prof. Two process modules of INFORMAS (public and private sector) will be implemented in Vietnam and join in the report and publication with other South-East countries including Malaysia and Thailand.

Similar to Malaysia team, the Vietnam team is supported by INFORMAS,  Prof. Boyd Swinburn, Dr. Bridget Kelly and Dr. Stefanie Vandevijvere in the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) project titled, “Mapping the implementation of priority food environment policies to tackle diet-related non-communicable diseases in South-East Asia: Comparison between three countries”. This is a multi-country study involving Malaysia, Vietnam, and Thailand, in collaboration. The local Vietnam team members include Dr. Tran Khanh Van (the National Institute of Nutrition) and Prof. Dr. Pham Van Phu (Hanoi Medical School) and other young researcher at the National Institute of Nutrition to organize for data collection which is capacity building for not only individuals but also for the National Institute of Nutrition in Vietnam (NIN) although Vietnam failed in finding a PhD to join in the project due to complicated procedure of receiving PhD degree. The overweight and obesity control is a new issue that the NIN has been raising in past few years as Vietnam has been facing with undernutrition for a long time and facing with double burden in last few decades.

We are preparing for the two stages of data collection which covers the public sector and private sector at the same time. The HMU will be responsible for the public sector while the NIN will be responsible for the later. A Training workshop is been organised for 7-8^th August for Vietnam and Malaysia teams. The Business Impact Assessment training will be lead by Dr Gary Sacks from INFORMAS.