November 6, 2024
On October 28, 2024, with the technical support of the Hanoi University of Public Health and Global Health Advocacy Incubator, the Health Environmental Management Agency within the Ministry of Health hosted Vietnam’s 4th National Scientific Conference on Injury Prevention in Hanoi. With the theme “Reducing Injury Burden: Effective and Sustainable Policies and Interventions,” the event welcomed nearly 200 prominent leaders, policymakers, and experts from national and international organizations, including the World Health Organization (WHO Geneva) and Johns Hopkins University.
A standout topic of discussion was child drowning prevention, a critical issue in Vietnam, where 2,000 children die from drowning each year, a rate significantly higher than other Western Pacific Asian countries. At the panel on child injury prevention, Ms. Doan Thi Thu Huyen, Country Director of GHAI in Vietnam, shared evidence-based research on the implementation of child drowning prevention programs in 12 provinces funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies since 2018. The study synthesized secondary data from project databases and gathered primary data through a survey of 1,500 households, while also conducting in-depth interviews to preliminary assess outcomes after a 5-year intervention. The percentage of children who can swim in the program areas increased from 14.7 percent to 32.6 percent, surpassing the national average. Consequently, the drowning rate among children in these areas showed a significant decline from 15.2 per 100,000 children in 2018 to 13.89 per 100,000 children in 2022. According to the research, 42.2 percent of parents are willing to pay more than 25 USD out of 30 USD for swimming lessons in 2022, which is higher than before the intervention (5.9%), reflecting the community’s interest and commitment to drowning prevention.
She emphasized drowning prevention as a shared responsibility starting with families and supported by inter-agency collaboration. Her recommendations included enhanced training for physical education teachers to offer safe swimming lessons, flexible policies to enable private partnerships for more swimming facilities and assessments to gauge these measures' social and economic impact. Ms. Huyen also highlighted the importance of communication campaigns to raise awareness about child drowning risks and preventive measures among parents and caregivers.
Reinforcing Ms. Huyen’s message, Ms. Luong Mai Anh from the Ministry of Health emphasized the importance of intersectoral collaboration to achieve national goals in injury prevention, including child drowning prevention. Moving forward, the Ministry of Health is working with other ministries and relevant agencies to finalize policies such as the Public Health Law and implement comprehensive safety programs, including swimming instruction and injury risk elimination at home and in schools.
From the Ministry of Education and Training, Deputy Director of the Department of Physical Education, Nguyen Nho Huy, announced that the Ministry of Education and Training’s new proposal to strengthen water safety education for students from 2025-2035 has been submitted for government approval. This initiative seeks to enhance students’ knowledge of water safety, increase the number of children who can swim, and prevent child drowning by making safe swimming lessons widely accessible.
