On January 12, 2022, Professor Banchong Mahaisavariya, President of Mahidol University chaired the 1st meeting on Thai Universities Network for Health Promotion. The participants included Dr. Nattaphan Supaka, (Director of the Relations and International Relations Development Office of the Health Promotion Fund and the network committee); Prof. Dr. Narin Hiransuthikul (Vice President of Chulalongkorn University); Associate Professor Dr. Ronnapop Euaphanthaset (M.D, Assistant to the President Chiang Mai University); Assistant professor Thanthip Saengsuwan (MD, Assistant to the President Prince of Songkla University); Assistant professor Dr. Thawilap Tansawad (Dean of the Faculty of Medicine Burapha University) and Professor Dr. Wongsa Laohasiriwong (Dean of the Faculty of Public Health Khon Kaen University).
Also joined the meeting were Dr. Wiwat Rojanapittayakorn (Advisor to Mahidol University Working Group, AUN-HPN Network) and Associate Professor Dr. Phudit Techattiwat (MD, Director of the ASEAN Institute for Health Development Mahidol University, Executive Director of ASEAN University Network for Health Promotion Network (AUN-HPN). The hybrid meeting took place at Krasae Chanawong Meeting Room, ASEAN Institute for Health Development. Mahidol University.
The Thai University Network for Health Promotion committee commits to implement one of the most important missions under the AUN-HPN. Mahidol University has received budget and cooperation from the Thai Health Promotion Foundation (Thai Health) to support the universities networks in Thailand for capacity building and become the leader in health promotion. Consequently, the communities of the Thai Universities network would be able to maintain sustainable health promotion activities under the cooperation between Mahidol University and all five universities to achieve the sustainable goal development and to reach the full potential of health promotion among universities in ASEAN and Thailand.
The approach to promote the role of health promotion in universities is to encourage universities and education institutes to enhance the awareness in health promotion policies to become health-promoting universities with the promoting guidelines as standard that universities should follow when developing policy experiences in health promotion with each other. This would provide a foundation to build up health-related research, transferability of health promotion innovations into policies and practices, and more importantly, towards the common goal of the AUN-HPN network of universities to work on health promotion in ASEAN.
This meeting discussed the future plan of the health promotion network under AUN-HPN and acknowledged the outcomes of health promotion efforts of Thai universities in AUN-HPN. The meeting also mentioned the necessity of the establishment of a working committee to prepare for the coming international conference to be held in December 2022.
