Author: Tuyet Anh Tran

November marks the annual World AMR Awareness Week, November 18–24, with the theme “Act Now: Protect Our Present, Secure Our Future.” 

As a global campaign to raise awareness and understanding of AMR and promote action to tackle the emergence and spread of drug-resistant pathogens, this year’s theme emphasises the need for united action and the importance of the participation of all levels, from grassroots community to high-level policy makers. 

Vietnam is ranked by the World Health Organization as among the countries with the highest rates of antibiotic resistance in the world. The main cause is antibiotic overuse—up to 88% of antibiotics in urban areas are sold without a prescription, and in rural areas, the rate reaches 91%. The situation of self-medication without seeing a doctor, buying medicine based on others’ prescriptions, or following others’ advice is also common and contributes to increasing antibiotic abuse cases. 

One highlighted campaign shared by the WHO is sharing real-life stories to encourage global action against antimicrobial resistance. At OUCRU, we have been successfully sharing community-based stories via several communication means to illustrate complex health issues, including AMR, and their tangible impact on daily lives. 

Methods that we used to produce community-based media 

Animate published AMR research to popularise among young people 

A project led by Collab Lab with support from OUCRU’s Public and Community Engagement group, Collab Lab’s mission is producing animated videos that summarise published research about rising global health issues to bring research to young people, nurturing their curiosity and interest in science as well as gathering feedback for researchers, to make our research more relevant in daily lives. 

AMR has been a cornerstone of Collab Lab’s chosen topics from day 1. Throughout the years, young passionate students have picked a wide range of published AMR research papers from OUCRU and partnered institutes, and made funny explainer videos. Check out the Collab Lab’s AMR playlist here. 

Theatre play and community performances are useful means to communicate complex topics like AMR 

Direct active engagement is a plus point of science theatre play methods. OUCRU co-wrote and organised several play performances in schools around Vietnam and community performances in Nepal to raise awareness among students and teachers. With the contribution from OUCRU’s scientists and audience, the play tours in both countries ended with positive support and feedback from the young audience.  

Comics and videos, powered by the community 

Misconceptions about antibiotic use have long been passed down through generations in Indonesia — from believing that antibiotics can treat all illnesses, to using them without prescriptions. These behaviours contribute to the growing global health threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Recognising the urgent need for targeted education among young people, PAPRA Indonesia, in collaboration with OUCRU Indonesia and Dr. Cipto Mangunkusumo National Central Public Hospital (RSCM), initiated an innovative public engagement project to raise awareness about the responsible use of antibiotics. 

The initiative, Youth Peer Educators Combat AMR, focuses on empowering school-aged children and youth through creative educational tools and peer-led learning. 

Explore more OUCRU’s public and community engagement AMR resources here. 

10 October is chosen to be World Mental Health Day. This year theme focuses on “Mental health in humanitarian emergencies”, highlights the essential need to support mental health during crises like natural disasters, and public health emergencies.

According to WHO, around 1 in 5 people in conflicted-affected areas are estimated to have a mental health condition. Experiencing fear, anxiety or sadness in such circumstances is a normal reaction to very stressful events. Beyond food, water, and medicine, survivors also need mental health and psychosocial support to cope, recover, and rebuild. Making mental health and psychosocial support a core part of emergency response not only saves lives but also strengthens communities and health systems for the future.

Among people who are in need of mental health support during disasters and emergencies, field workers often face extreme stress due to the direct effect they respond to, heavy urgent workload in difficult working environment. To support field workers, in partnership with Medisetter, OUCRU’s Public and Community Engagement Group organised a webinar focusing on helping field workers equip with psychological first aid for not just themselves but people around them. You can watch the webinar’s recording here.

Coincidentally, Vietnamese Psychotherapy Association organises another webinar focusing on Access to Service: Mental Health in Catastrophes and Emergencies on 2025’s World Mental Health Day. You can register here.

Investing in mental health and psychosocial support helps families, communities, and economies recover from crises, build long-term resilience, and shape stronger health systems. Therefore, mental health care and access should be a priority in multi-level health strategies to ensure it is valued, protected, and accessible for all, especially during times of crisis.

As a part of the collaboration between OUCRU, Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) and The Global Health Network (TGHN), CONNECT was founded with the goal of building a support network, provide equitable access to professional development opportunities and learning materials, tailouring for healthcare workers.

Acknowledge that Vietnam has a unique health industry context of challenging working environment with limited resources, CONNECT has developed a dedicated page, focusing on sharing knowledge, training materials, and practical experiences for healthcare workers and the research community in different health settings in Vietnam. Our objective is to build an open resource and platform that helps healthcare professionals improve communication skills, soft skills, effective patient care, and sustainable professional development.

We would like to invite you to contribute articles or share experiences to our network:

Example topics

• Experience in communicating with colleagues, managers, patients and their families
• Management skills and teamwork in healthcare facilities
• Medical ethics practice, handling sensitive situations
• Mental health care
• Technology applications in healthcare
• Lessons learned and stories from medical practice

Format

Short articles (500-1,000 words) with images or short videos (optional).

Benefits

• Articles will be edited and published on the CONNECT platform.
• English articles approved by TGHN will be assigned a DOI (Digital Object Identifier)
• Authors will be credited with their name and affiliated institution, promoting a professional image.
• Outstanding works may be cited in communications materials, conferences, or training activities.

How to submit

• Send articles via email connect@oucru.org
• Email subject: Article contribution for CONNECT – [Author Name]

We look forward to your participation. Together, we can build an open, practical, and useful learning community for Vietnamese healthcare professionals.

CONNECT Vietnam Editorial Team

As part of the project to Improve Hepatitis C Access and Treatment for Underserved Communities, OUCRU’s Public and Community Engagement Group together with Social Science, Ethics, and Implementation Research Group organised a dialogue session between community members, social insurance representatives, and social scientists.  

The session brought together representatives from underserved communities who had contributed to the project through community-based participatory research (CBPR), including people who inject drugs (PWID) , people with limited financial resources, and LGBT+ individuals. They shared their challenges in accessing health insurance for hepatitis C treatment and care.  

Viet Nam has the fifth highest liver cancer incidence and death rate in the world and approximately 8 million people have hepatitis B, C or both⁽¹⁾. Even though Hepatitis C treatment is available in Vietnam, several barriers affect hepatitis C testing, diagnosis, and treatment. These barriers include that testing and diagnosis can only be performed at provincial and central hospitals, people may be asymptomatic or unaware they need testing, and test results often take a long time. High treatment costs before they are covered by insurance are also a big challenge.   

In 2018, Vietnam changed the insurance regulations related to Hepatitis C treatment. Specifically, Hepatitis C patients can receive financial support from health insurance for testing costs, treatment costs using approved medications listed in the insurance catalog, and necessary medical procedures and treatments during treatment (which may be partially or fully covered). Typically, health insurance in Vietnam supports 30% – 50% of the costs for those defined medical services, depending on insurance registration conditions and insurance types⁽²⁾.  

Community members face both systematic and objective challenges.  

The event opened an open discussion for community members to highlight several challenges they face despite recent improvements in social insurance policies.  

Systematic challenges:  

• Complex healthcare system. Vietnam’s multi-tiered hospital system has specific scopes and facilities at each level. For Hepatitis C, lower-tier hospitals may lack diagnostic and treatment capabilities, requiring patient transfers to higher tiers. Insurance coverage varies between tiers with different terms and paperwork, creating additional administrative complexity.  
• Information gaps. Despite the government’s efforts in simplifying the registration and renewal process through the People’s Committees’ ward offices and post offices, many community members remain unaware of these options as well as their HepC treatment benefits under health insurance.  

Objective challenges:  

•  Documentation barriers. One outstanding challenge for marginalised populations is insufficient personal documentation (such as government ID) needed to obtain health insurance. While the government has appointed some certain social enterprises as community representatives to help, it’s a long way to go.  
• Financial constraints. Though social health insurance in Vietnam is designed to be affordable, it remains challenging for many, especially those without stable employment or those facing personal financial burdens such as debts or medical expenses for family members.  
• Medical privacy concerns. The hospital referral process may require patients to disclose HIV status or other chronic conditions in order to access HepC treatment at higher-tier hospitals, compromising their right to privacy.  

“We need to keep the conversation going.”  

Acknowledging the power of listening to community voices, Associate Professor Jennifer Van Nuil, Head of Social Science, Ethics, and Implementation Research Group, emphasised the importance of how CBPR (community-based participatory research method) can help to set up strong support networks within and for the community.  

“Social Healthcare Insurance is part of the Vietnamese government’s social security policy. We aim to reach 95% of Vietnam’s population.”

MsC. Nguyen Thi Thu Hang, Vice President of Ho Chi Minh’s Social Healthcare Insurance

Ms Hang also expressed appreciation for the community’s initiatives and their clear sharings of their situations as well as emphasised that community discussions like this could significantly help reach underserved populations. 

References:

1. https://www.who.int/vietnam/news/detail/28-07-2024-world-hepatitis-day—viet-nam-pilots-action-to-improve-access-to-hepatitis-c-care
2. https://thuvienphapluat.vn/phap-luat/dieu-tri-benh-viem-gan-c-co-duoc-bao-hiem-y-te–chi-tra-chi-phi-thuoc-dieu-tri-khong-quy-dinh-cua-p-5814.html

Tailour a culturally relevant message to reach the ethnic minority communities to improve vaccine communications and vaccine uptake. 

Vaccine refusal, delay or hesitation is a growing concern worldwide, proven through the increased occurrence of vaccine-preventable diseases in children. Reasons vary widely between parents, but they can be encompassed in four overarching categories: religious reasons, personal beliefs or philosophical reasons, safety concerns and a desire for more information from healthcare providers. 

In Vietnam, research carried out by Dr Nguyen Thanh Ha in Dak Lak province found that most parents face structural challenges that prevent them from taking their children for vaccination, such as lack of transportation and/or a driving license, difficult routes to vaccination centres or difficulties taking work absences. 

Another important finding of the research is that local healthcare workers and village health collaborators play an essential role in encouraging and maintaining the community’s vaccination behaviours. 

In response to these findings, OUCRU collaborated with the Dak Lak CDC to develop a training programme to enhance the capacity of commune health collaborators and health station staff, with a particular focus on supporting their communication about the vaccines and vaccination process to communicate with the local community, who may not even speak the same language.  

As an expansion of this effort, OUCRU’s Public and Community Engagement Group recently produced a short movie co-created with the local community using storytelling techniques to spotlight the real stories behind vaccine decisions, revealing their concerns and challenges in real life. This movie helps village health collaborators and health station staff appear more relevant, thereby facing fewer challenges while convincing the local parent community about vaccine-related matters.  

“I noticed that people showed more concern and became more proactive about vaccination after watching.”

Village Health Collaborator

“I was very touched and emotional. I saw the consequences that children might bear for life.”

Community Member

Featuring community members to build connections 

Research on improving access to care for people impacted by Hepatitis C used the participatory action research method to find that many high-risk community members including drug users or men who have sex with men didn’t know where to find trustworthy hepatitis information without the fear of being discriminated against. To address this issue, community-based group who joined the project initiated several ideas, including short videos featuring Hepatitis C-affected community members to encourage the Hepatitis C high-risk population to seek useful information from trustworthy sources. 

Communications with a niche population in a challenging context 

Over 150 million Indonesians are at risk of malaria, which over 90% of national malaria cases remain concentrated in Papua making this country one of nine malaria-endemic countries in the Southeast Asia region. Malaria eradication efforts prioritize safe and efficient vaccination strategies, although none with high-level efficacy against malaria infection are yet available. 

Regular deployment of Indonesian Army personnel into high-risk areas makes the development of a malaria vaccine and trial on Indonesian minimally malaria-exposed infantry soldiers in Papua Province, New Guinea is considered ideal solution to reduce the risk of malaria transmission among the soldiers visiting Papua, travellers and domestic tourist. 

In order to quickly explain and recruit those soldiers to join the malaria trial, OUCRU Indonesia’s Public and Community Engagement team developed animated explainer video and successfully got the approval from the Indonesian army. 

The video served not only as an example of collaboration among all stakeholders but also as a powerful tool in research, showing the effect of clear communications and community engagement to support trial research. 

Success in those community engagement stories requires more than just information dissemination – it demands a deep understanding of community needs, cultural sensitivities and the creative use of the right media methods and channels. When these elements come together effectively, they can be significantly impactful in supporting research and improving public and community health science acceptance. 

Reference of OUCRU Study:  
Implementation of a Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Trial of Live Attenuated Malaria Sporozoite Vaccines in an Indonesian Military Study Population in: The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene Volume 110 Issue 5 (2024)