The faculty of Public Health, KhonKaen University held the “6th International Conference on Public Health among the Great Mekong Sub-Regional Countries” under the theme “Health Service System in a Borderless Community” on 6th-7th November 2014 at Pullman Hotel KhonKaen, Thailand.

Asst.Prof.Dr.Somsak Pitaksanurat, Dean of the Faculty of Health, Khon Kaen University said “Nowadays our GMS countries are in the world of changing and complicated. We’re facing the big challenge in health from the coming AEC in 2015 and also the mobility of labor. We should prepare the collaboration among the countries in many sector such as the development of human resources, the health service system  and the appropriate and compatible organization’s structure for health care for the vary groups of people.

Dr.Wiput Poolcharoen, Chairman of Health Impact Assessment Commission Thailand said in the Dean council of Public health faculty meeting by pointing out the importance of the need to include the Health Impact Assessment in the Public heath curriculum. “Health Impact Assessment or HIA not only the tool or technique for impact assessment. HIA is the process to obtain the information and choices which support the decision making process. HIA helps to predict the future after the decision had done. Currently Thailand and other ASEAN countries face the challenge in Public Health such as the changing of diseases, the mobility of labor and also the tourists which come across country, HIA will help strengthen the effectiveness of public health work in this social context.
  
 After the meeting, Dean council of Public health faculty agreed on setting up the committee to develop the collaboration between the council and Nation Health Commission Office (NHCO). The collaboration will be done by the feasibility study and curriculum development in HIA as well as the academic cooperation and research. In this case, the research maybe done and put result in design the framework and develop to the curriculum.

In addition, in this international conference, there was the forum on the topic “Development of HIA in Thailand : Past, Present and Future” which came from the lesson learnt in the field of HIA in Thailand from various sectors. Whether the work of HIA commission, NHCO, Ministry of Public Health, Institute, private and public sector, which used HIA in different levels from project to policy. The discussion is aim to make participants understand the need for introducing HIA in Thailand. The forum drawn the attention of a lot of participants.

Asst.Prof.Dr.Somsak Pitaksanurat added “HIA is the important issue for the study in Public Health and also for the staff who work in this field because HIA is the tools and mechanisms to create the partnership and avoid the impact which will be occurred to social and environment. HIA will be included as one of the agenda in the next conference.

For the 7th International Conference on Public Health among GMS countries will be held on 7th September 2015 which hosted by Vietnam. The aims of conference are to develop an module through community based health research for evidence-based planning and management that will be integrated into the practical training for all specialties in public health.