Methods: This quasi-experimental study will assess community member and community health volunteer knowledge, attitudes, and practices on noncommunicable disease prevention, risk factors, and health-seeking behavior in three geographical areas of Kuala Lumpur, each representing a different ethnicity (Malay, Indian, and Chinese). Assessment will take place before and after a 9-month intervention period, comparing intervention areas with matched control geographies. We plan to engage 2880 community members and 45 community health volunteers across the six geographic areas. A digital health needs assessment will inform modification of digital health tools to support project aims. Intervention co-creation will use a discrete choice experiment to identify community preferences among evidence-based intervention options, building from data collected on community knowledge, attitudes, and practices. Community health volunteers will work with local businesses and other stakeholders to effect change in obesogenic environments and NCD risk. The study has been approved by the Malaysian Ministry of Health Medical Research Ethical Committee.
Discussion: The Better Health Programme Malaysia anticipates a bottom-up approach that relies on community health volunteers collaborating with local businesses to implement activities that address obesogenic environments and improve community knowledge, attitudes, and practices related to NCD risk. The planned co-creation process will determine which interventions will be most locally relevant, feasible, and needed. The effort aims to empower community members and community health volunteers to drive change that improves their own health and wellbeing. The learnings can be useful nationally and sub-nationally in Malaysia, as well as across similar settings that are working with community stakeholders to reduce noncommunicable disease risk.
Trial registration: National Medical Research Register, Malaysia; NMRR-20-1004-54787 (IIR); July 7, 2020.
Methods: We have selected a total of nine Asian nations, based on the strength of their economic output and long-term real GDP growth rates. The OECD members included Japan and the Republic of Korea, while the seven non-OECD nations were China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Thailand. Healthcare systems efficiency was analyzed over the period 1996-2017. To assess the effectiveness of healthcare expenditure of each group of countries, the two-way fixed effects model (country- and year effects) was used.
Results: Quality of governance and current health expenditure determine healthcare system performance. Population density and urbanization are positively associated with a healthy life expectancy in the non-OECD Asian countries. In this group, unsafe water drinking has a statistically negative effect on healthy life expectancy. Interestingly, only per capita consumption of carbohydrates is significantly linked with healthy life expectancy. In these non-OECD Asian countries, unsafe water drinking and per capita carbon dioxide emissions increase infant mortality. There is a strong negative association between GDP per capita and infant mortality in both sub-samples, although its impact is far larger in the OECD group. In Japan and South Korea, unemployment is negatively associated with infant mortality.
Conclusion: Japan outperforms other countries from the sample in major healthcare performance indicators, while South Korea is ranked second. The only exception is per capita carbon dioxide emissions, which have maximal values in the Republic of Korea and Japan. Non-OECD nations' outcomes were led by China, as the largest economy. This group was characterized with substantial improvement in efficiency of health spending since the middle of the 1990s. Yet, progress was noted with remarkable heterogeneity within the group.
AIM: The aim of our study was to investigate the perceptions and readiness of schoolteachers to accept notifications on food poisoning as a part of education to the students.
METHODOLOGY: A descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out with the help of a validated questionnaire for data collection. Our research involved schoolteachers from both primary and secondary schools in Muar. The questionnaire was pretested among the eligible trainee teachers and yielded an internal consistency reliability coefficient (c = Cronbach's alpha) of 0.082. This study was conducted from October 29, 2017, to December 14, 2018, in Muar. Our sample size was 259. Ethical consent was obtained from the Institution Ethical Committee.
RESULTS: A total of 259 schoolteachers from both primary and secondary schools in Muar were included in this study. In our study, 81.1% of the teachers responded that they can easily educate their students about food poisoning. Most of them (93.1%) were ready to receive notifications on food poisoning in any mode, and about 72% of the teachers preferred WhatsApp as their mode of receiving notification. The least (1.2%) preferred mode of notification was LINE (a social app). Teachers' willingness to disseminate the information regarding food poisoning was also higher (98.5%).
CONCLUSIONS: We concluded that majority of the schoolteachers had a good perception and were ready to receive the notifications on food poisoning through WhatsApp as a part of education to the students.