Public Health in East and Southeast Asia presents an overview of the state of public health across this vast region and considers the challenges and prospects for its future advancement. It pays particular attention to how rapid economic progress has brought accelerated change, both demographic and epidemiological, to an area already marked by great heterogeneity in health status and public health systems. In comparative and thematically oriented chapters, leading scholars consider such issues as changes in values and lifestyles, infectious diseases, nutrition, tobacco, chronic diseases, accidents and injury, environmental health, occupational health, the effect of globalization, and health services.

Health patterns in Southeast Asia have changed profoundly over the past century. In that period, epidemic and chronic diseases, environmental transformations, and international health institutions have created new connections within the region and the increased interdependence of Southeast Asia with China and India. In this volume leading scholars provide a new approach to the history of health in Southeast Asia. Framed by a series of synoptic pieces on the "Landscapes of Health" in Southeast Asia in 1914, 1950, and 2014 the essays interweave local, national, and regional perspectives. They range from studies of long-term processes such as changing epidemics, mortality and aging, and environmental history to detailed accounts of particular episodes: the global cholera epidemic and the hajj, the influenza epidemic of 1918, WWII, and natural disasters. The writers also examine state policy on healthcare and the influence of organizations, from NGOs such as the China Medical Board and the Rockefeller Foundation to grassroots organizations in Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

This book is the first to present a regional analysis of climate change and human health, focusing on geographically and socio-economically distinct countries of South and Southeast Asia. It has a major focus on India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Thailand, Nepal and Taiwan. Climate change is a significant and emerging threat to human health. lt represents a range of environmental hazards and will affect populations in both the developed and developing countries. In particular, it affects the regions where the current burden of climate-sensitive diseases are high, which is the case in South and Southeast Asian countries.

Global public health is of growing concern to most governments and populations, nowhere more so than in Asia, the world’s largest and most populous continent. Whilst major advances have been made in controlling infectious diseases through public health measures as well as clinical medical treatments, the world now faces other challenges including ageing populations and the epidemic crisis of obesity and non-communicable diseases. New emerging infections continue to develop and the growing threats to health due to environmental pollution and climate change increase the need for resilience and sustainability. These threats to health are global in nature, and this Handbook will explore perspectives on current public health issues in South, Southeast and East Asia, informing global as well as regional debate. Whilst many books cite Western examples of the development of global public health, this Handbook brings together both Western and Eastern scholarship, creating a new global public health perspective suitable to face modern challenges in promoting the population’s health. This Handbook is essential reading not only for students, professionals and scholars of global public health and related fields but is also written to be accessible to those with a general interest in the health of Asia.

Providing an immediate, contemporary example of a region networking its response to disease outbreak events, this insightful book will appeal to global health governance scholars, students, and practitioners.

The contributors to this volume show how the practices of health in Southeast Asia over the past two centuries were mediated by local medical traditions, colonial interests, range of health agents and intermediaries.

The book covers all aspects of eye health in South-East Asia from public health to health system to education to industry in 6 sections. The World Health Organization (WHO) South-East Asia region comprises of 11 countries - Bangladesh, Bhutan, DPR Korea, India, Indonesia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Timor-Leste. This region is home to 26% of world population; there is a disproportionate amount of blindness (30.6%) and visual impairment (36%). This is a first of its kind book that discusses common conditions of visual impairment and blindness in the South-East Asia region. In addition, the book documents the current eye care industry in the region and the contribution of all eye health INGOs in eye care program planning and service delivery for many decades. Majority of the countries in the South-East Asia region are categorized in ‘middle-income country’ group. This book discusses the common challenges in these countries such as, suboptimal public expenditure in health, acute shortage of skilled eye health workforce, and rudimentary health industry. The book covers the following 6 sections: 1. Geographic description and health indices of the region 2. Health system evolved over years, including universal eye health, health financing and health management information system (HMIS) 3. Common eye problems including non-communicable disease NCD (and diabetic retinopathy), neglected tropical disease NTD (and Trachoma) 4. Health workforce in the region that includes ophthalmologists, optometrists, and allied ophthalmic personnel 5. Eye health support in the region of 13 international non-government organizations (INGOs) working for decades 6. Eye health industry in the region that includes spectacles, ophthalmic devices and equipment and the pharma industry The book would be a useful resource for ophthalmologists, all public health personnel and policy makers in eye health in the South-East Asia region specifically and all ophthalmologists and scientists interested in public health all over the world as well as for program planning to reach the 'Health for All' strategy by 2030 (United Nations Sustainable Development Goal, SDG 2030).