Outcomes

ASEAN University Network – Health Promotion Network

  1. Advocacy toward a healthy university: Since establishment of AUN-HPN, the network has advocated for the health promotion concept. As part of our efforts, the AUN Health University Framework (HUF) was developed (in 2017) and has become a significant output of the network as it has been used as a powerful tool to advocate for a healthy university in the Asian region. Anecdotally, awareness on the importance of health promotion and appreciation in a critical role of higher education institutions in addressing public health problems have been raised among AUN member universities. Many of our members have adopted the health promotion concepts and implementing the HUF in their universities.
    We are collecting data from our member universities on implementation progress toward HUF, including lessons learned, key success factors and barriers to the implementation. These data will be important feedback to the AUN-HPN Secretariat for the assessment on how well the HUF is being implemented and if it has been implemented as expected. The collected data will also facilitate development of programs and future planning to support member universities to efficiently and effectively implement the health promotion concept, and to further strengthen health promotion capacity of member universities in the future.
  2. Health promotion capacity building: Although health promotion is not a new concept but it is a discipline which is often neglected at higher education institutions. As health promotion by its nature applies a holistic and multi-sectoral approach, AUN-HPN has put great efforts to build up capacity of our member universities. They could then gain more knowledge and understanding in the health promotion concept. In the past couple of years, we focused on health promotion research and leadership. Therefore, we arranged two technical workshops to build up skills and respond to our priority needs.
  3. Knowledge and experience sharing: Knowledge and experience sharing is considered as a key component of networking activities. Therefore, AUN-HPN has been providing opportunities as many as possible to our member universities for their knowledge and experience sharing. Apart from learning from each other, AUN-HPN also invite regional and international experts to share their expertise with our members. We believe that knowledge and experience sharing among members themselves and with the experts will broaden perspective in health promotion and lead to more innovative approaches and strategies in dealing with public health issue in our members’ country. Another outstanding effort to promote knowledge and experience sharing is the organization of the AUN Health Promotion Conference, and the next one will be organized in Manila on 20-21 August 2019.
  4. Health promotion research collaboration: AUN-HPN has encouraged our members to develop a collaborative research project among themselves and with other academic partners. In 2018, AUN-HPN was successful in providing a platform for our members to discuss and develop a collaborative research project on non-communicable diseases. In parallel with this project, another research project on physical activity has successfully been granted (for 3 years during 2018-2021) and will start the implementation by the first quarter in 2019. This successful grant will be a demonstration project to our members on how to work together and generate the knowledge required to improve public health and wellbeing.