Living Together with Chronic Disease: Informal Support for Diabetes Management in Vietnam
Global health is in transition: non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are currently posing new challenges to individuals, families and governments across the globe. As a case for addressing NCDs, this project focuses on type 2 diabetes in Vietnam, exploring the role of informal support in everyday disease management.
The prevalence of chronic health conditions such as cardiovascular diseases, cancers, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes is currently rising dramatically across the world, with particularly severe consequences for low- and middle-income countries.
This research project is based on the assumption that informal support plays a significant, but under-recognized role in everyday lives with chronic disease and that more systematic knowledge of the role of informal forms of care can enhance national responses to the NCD epidemic, improving health systems capacities to address diabetes and other NCDs while also enhancing our understanding of the ways in which family and household dynamics shape the human impact of chronic health conditions.
The project aims to develop innovative models for active involvement of informal caregivers in day-to-day disease management, while also enhancing Vietnamese and Danish research capacities in the NCD field and generating new knowledge of the ways in which chronic health conditions are embedded in everyday forms of sociality.
Articles for international journals are in process. Five articles (not online) have been published in the Vietnamese journal 'Tạp Chí Y Học Việt Nam' (Journal of Medicine in Vietnam) in 2019.
Other dissemination
Press reports in Vietnam:
https://baothaibinh.com.vn/tin-tuc/11/72874/truong-dai-hoc-y-duoc-thai-binh-tu-hao-nua-the-ky
The project is conducted in Vietnam’s Thai Binh province as an academic partnership between Thai Binh University of Medicine and Pharmacy (TBUMP) and the Universities of Copenhagen, UCPH, and Southern Denmark, SDU. (See news article)
The project is carried out in close collaboration with the Danish-Vietnamese Strategic Sector Cooperation (SSC) project: Strengthening the Frontline Grassroots Health Worker: Prevention and Management of NCDs at the Primary Health Care Level, with Novo Nordisk as private sector partner. The project places emphasis on research capacity building and includes a pilot intervention programme that introduces diabetes clubs and -classes as elements of diabetes care in Vietnam.
Researchers
| Name | Title | Phone | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Search in Name | Search in Title | Search in Phone | |
| Dan Wolf Meyrowitsch | Associate Professor | +4535327174 | |
| Ib Christian Bygbjerg | Professor | +4535327835 | |
| Tine Gammeltoft | Professor | +4535323474 |
Funded by:
The project has received funding from Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark.
Project: Living Together with Chronic Disease: Informal Support for Diabetes Management in Vietnam
Period: November 2018 - October 2022.
Contact
Professor Tine Gammeltoft
Department of Anthropology
Mail: tine.gammeltoft@anthro.ku.dk
Phone: +45 35 32 34 74
Mobile: +45 61 86 08 83
External members:
| Name | Title |
|---|---|
| Professor Jens Søndergaard | Research Unit of General Practice, University of Southern Denmark |
| Dr Nguyen Xuan Bai | Vice-Rector at Thai Binh University of Medicine and Pharmacy |
| Dr Nguyen Duc Thanh | Head of International Department at Thai Binh University of Medicine and Pharmacy |