Global Health Work
Policy, Reports and White Papers
The Southeast Asia Regional Collaborative for Health (SEARCH), housed at the NUS Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, has produced a report on strengthening strategic health purchasing in Southeast Asia. The report overviews healthcare purchasing mechanisms across the ASEAN region and provides national- and regional-level recommendations to improve strategic purchasing for UHC, with a special focus on primary healthcare.
The full report is available here.
The LIGHT team contributed to a report on Universal Health Coverage by holding country consultations in Singapore and writing up their findings to be included in a publication coordinated by the Civil Society Engagement Mechanism for UHC2030 (CSEM). The team held focus groups with representatives of vulnerable communities to capture their stories and experiences showing progress and gaps in achieving UHC.
The full report is available here.
This report summarises the discussion during a meeting held on 30th June 2022 to discuss lessons learned from the RECOVERY Trial and areas of potential collaboration to conduct clinical research in Thailand. The RECOVERY Trial was established by Professor (Sir) Peter Horby (Oxford Nuffield Department of Medicine) and Professor Martin Landray (Oxford Population Health) in March 2020 to address the clinical uncertainties in the treatment of COVID-19 – a novel disease for which no proven therapeutic options were available
Click here to view the report.
Following from an online policy dialogue discussing New Zealand’s and Malaysia’s policies to ban smoking, this report explores what lessons Singapore can learn from this countries’ experiences implementing a tobacco-free generation.
Click here to view the report.
In collaboration with the Precision Public Health Asia Society, the LIGHT team published a white paper on Responsible Data Sharing in Health and Healthcare. Following from consultation with stakeholders in different countries involved in different aspects of health and healthcare, the whitepaper aims to provide useful and practical considerations on the safe and responsible use of health data.
Click here to view the white paper.
The NUS SSHSPH completed a report focusing on HIV financing and universal health coverage in the ASEAN region. The report delves into understanding the extent to which the financing and delivery of HIV prevention, testing and treatment are incorporated into health systems in the ASEAN region, as well as dissecting the structural issues hampering universal access to these services. The report ended with comparative lessons for countries in the region and recommendations for policy and practice to broaden the scopes of HIV financing in line with the pursuit of universal health coverage.
View the full report here. You can also catch the replay of the webinar here.
This report aims to provide an overview of Singapore’s long-term care landscape and summarise a Roundtable discussion on how Assisted Living could be developed to plug gaps in Singapore’s long-term care system, which took place on 18 April 2022. The Roundtable event brought together close to 40 policymakers, practitioners, and multi-sectoral stakeholders to discuss how we can make assisted living affordable and accessible in Singapore, with a comparable quality to other advanced economies, and develop a roadmap for policymakers to flesh out and commit to a more complete long term care landscape in Singapore, which could in turn pave the way to similar discussions in other countries in the South-East Asia region.
Click here to view the report.
The LIGHT team completed a research project on Long Term Care and Assisted Living in Singapore, culminating in a policy report and an academic publication. The report aims to examine the feasibility and potential of Assisted Living to be developed as a mainstream model of care in Singapore. Using a combination of case studies and key informant interviews with stakeholders from several countries in Asia, the report intends to shed light on the implementation process, governance framework, regulatory modes and financing options for Assisted Living.
Click here to view the report.
The NUS SSHSPH analysed a total of 212,793 episodes of gastrointestinal (GI) endoscopy (upper and lower GI endoscopies with and without biopsies, polypectomies etc) for the period 2014-2019. The data was obtained from seven MediShield Life Integrated Plan insurers and independently analysed for trends in utilisation, pricing and diagnoses. Results of the analyses were presented in a report published online.
Click here to view the report.
The School contributed a report on Singapore’s response for the COVID-19 Health System Response Monitor for the WHO Asia-Pacific Observatory on Health Systems and Policies. The report is available online.
Click here to view the report.
This paper seeks to understand the state of policy maturity in addressing the challenges brought by potential adoption of one-off high-cost treatments, mainly cellular and gene therapies (CGT), in selected Asian countries. Our specific focus was on 2 main areas: (1) How national health systems were preparing to fund these therapies and the readiness for innovative funding models, including in partnership with manufacturers, and (2) The readiness of the health systems to administer these therapies and manage post-therapy complications.
Click here to view the paper.
This paper describes the current state of UHC in select Asian countries, the trajectory of UHC attainment, barriers and potential solutions, focusing on those which the pharmaceutical industry could contribute towards with its expertise and resources.
Click here to view the paper.
Publications
Foo CD, Verma M, Tan SY, Hamer J, van der Mark N, Pholpark A, Hanvoravongchai P, Cheh PLJ, Marthias T, Mahendradhata Y, Putri LP, Hafidz F, Giang KB, Khuc THH, Minh HV, Wu S, Caamal-Olvera CG, Orive G, Wang H, Nachuk S, Lim J, de Oliveira Cruz V, Yates R and Legido-Quigley H. (2023) Health financing policies during the COVID-19 pandemic and implications for universal health care: a case study of 15 countries. Lancet Glob. Health 11:e1964-e1977. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(23)00448-5
Foo CD, Chia HX, Teo KW, Farwin A, Hashim J, Koh GCH, Matchar DB, Legido-Quigley H and Yap JCH. (2023) Healthier SG: Singapore’s multi-year strategy to transform primary healthcare. Lancet Reg. Health West. Pac. 37: 100861. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lanwpc.2023.100861
For further information, please click here.
Media Coverage: Healthier SG: Singapore’s multi-year strategy to transform primary healthcare, Lianhe Zaobao Opinion, 22 August 2023
Barcellona C, Khor SK and Lim J. (2023) Challenges and opportunities for regional collaboration for strategic purchasing in Southeast Asia. Lancet Reg. Health Southeast Asia 15:100227. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lansea.2023.100227
Tan SY, Foo CD, Verma M, Hanvoravongchai P, Cheh PLJ, Pholpark A, Marthias T, Hafidz F, Putri LP, Mahendradhata Y, Giang KB, Nachuk S, Wang H, Lim J and Legido-Quigley H. (2023) Mitigating the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on vulnerable populations: Lessons for improving health and social equity. Soc. Sci. Med. 328:116007. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.116007
Chia HX, Tan SY, Ko KC, Tan RKJ and Lim J. (2022) HIV drug resistance in Southeast Asia: prevalence, determinants, and strategic management. J. Public Health Emerg. 6:26. https://doi.org/10.21037/jphe-22-5
Duong DB, King AJ, Grépin KA, Hsu LY, Lim JFY, Phillips C, Thai TT, Venkatachalam I, Vogt F, Yam ELY, Bazley S, Chang LDJ, Flaugh R, Nagle B, Ponniah JD, Sun P, Trad NK and Berwick DM. (2022) Strengthening national capacities for pandemic preparedness: a cross-country analysis of COVID-19 cases and deaths. Health Policy Plan. 37:55-64. https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czab122
Koh A, Swanepoel DW, Ling A, Ho BL, Tan SY and Lim J. (2021) Digital health promotion: promise and peril. Health Promot. Int. 36:i70-i80. https://doi.org/10.1093/heapro/daab134
Poh L, Tan SY and Lim J. (2021) Governance of assisted living in long-term care: a systematic literature review. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 18:11352. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182111352
Case Studies
Digital monitoring and virtual patient education have proliferated during the COVID-19 pandemic, enabling rapid scaling of care. This case study showcases Bot MD Care, an A.I. chat assistant that automates clinical workflows, patient monitoring and engagement across various clinical settings so that healthcare workers can save time and expand their reach. By piggybacking on commercially popular consumer messaging apps (eg. WhatsApp), Bot MD Care was widely adopted and has potential to transform healthcare delivery models.
Click here to view the case study.
Telemedicine was widely adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic, enabling many globally to access healthcare despite physical safe distancing measures and restricted access to healthcare facilities. This case study presents Good Doctor Technology, an example from Indonesia in which standardised clinical pathways and medical triage automation for text-based teleconsultations first developed in China, was rapidly adapted successfully for use, despite significant differences in the target population’s disease patterns and health-seeking behaviours.
Click here to view the case study.
This case study features the World Toilet Organization (WTO) – a global non-profit organisation committed to improving toilet and sanitation conditions worldwide, founded by Singaporean Jack Sim. As a social enterprise, WTO has been able to change policies at the highest level to push the sanitation agenda forward, through public policy, advocacy and convening efforts. This case study focuses on WTO’s public policy endeavours by highlighting four use-cases where the organisation’s championing efforts have supported favourable policy changes in China, the United Nations, India and Brazil.
Click here to view the case study.
Op-eds and Commentaries
Further to their work on civil society perspectives to achieve Universal Health Coverage as well as work on the topics of health equity and health system strengthening, two Research Assistants in the LIGHT team published a commentary on Today on World UHC Day on 12 December 2022. The commentary highlighted some of the gaps in care for vulnerable members of society in Singapore, and discussed suggestions and opportunities to address these gaps.
Many Asian economies are ageing rapidly, including Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam. For these economies, relying primarily on family as caregivers for seniors to age in place is no longer sustainable in light of ageing populations and falling birth rates. On 2 March 2022, the LIGHT team contributed an op-ed to The Straits Times discussing this issue and raised the current lack of options for seniors who need more support than their family caregivers can provide but do not require the intensive round-the-clock care provided by nursing homes.
The role of assisted living services and residential facilities to support this group of seniors to age in place was also explored. The Singapore experience with these developments will offer insights to countries in the region who are facing or will face similar questions about how to support their ageing population.
Read more here.
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Students interested in global health research opportunities may fill in the following form via the following link to be contacted if an opportunity arises.