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Vietnam is facing a shortage of skilled Environmental health workforce. A Training Needs Assessment was conducted to develop a list of environmental health tasks, a list of core competencies and assess the need for a Master of Environmental Health training program in Vietnam. To answer these questions, a cross-sectional study was conducted in Vietnam in 2017, using both qualitative and quantitative methods. The qualitative study involved a desk review, 29 in-depth interviews, two consultative workshops, and two expert meetings. For the quantitative component, 298 environmental health staff working at different levels completed a structured postal questionnaire. Results showed that different sectors were implementing various environmental health tasks but that there was currently no training program focusing on environmental health in Vietnam. Thirteen core competencies for a Master of Environmental Health were recommended. An urgent need to develop training programs to help building environmental health competencies at the Masters degree level was uniformly expressed. This could be achieved by developing a Master of Public Health with an Environmental Health stream in the short-term and a Master of Environmental Health program in the long-term., Competing Interests: Conflict of interest: The author team declares no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the authorship, and/or publication of this manuscript., (© 2020 the Author(s), licensee AIMS Press.)

Self-treatment is particularly prevalent in Vietnam. However, the prevalence of this practice among the working population is unclear. This study aims to describe the prevalence of self-treatment and related factors among workers aged 15 to 60 years in the suburban area of Chi Linh, Hai Duong, Vietnam. Secondary data of 3128 respondents was retrieved from the CHILILAB HDSS 2016 survey for analysis using logistic regression with a significance level of .05. Results show that 47.5% of respondents treated themselves at least once during one previous year. While rural residence and the presence of acute health symptoms and chronic diseases significantly associate with the choice of self-treatment among all investigated workers, lower education level and health insurance status only significantly relate to this practice among the formally employed workers. The findings imply the need for specific measures to manage self-treatment practices among different groups of workers.

Smoking and harmful drinking dramatically increase health risks but little is known about their cooccurrence and factors that influence this co-habit, limiting development and implementation of appropriately targeted prevention interventions. This study was conducted among youth aged 10-24 years old in the Chi Linh Demographic - Epidemiological Surveillance System (CHILILAB DESS). The total numbers in the first, second and third rounds in 2006, 2009 and 2013 were 12,406, 10,211, and 7,654, respectively. A random-effects logit model controlling for both time-variant and time-invariant variables was applied to explore factors associated with current smoking, harmful drinking, and occurrence of smoking and harmful drinking together. We found dramatically increasing trends in current smoking, harmful drinking and co-occurrence among youth. Our results indicate similar health problems among youth in peri-urban areas in Vietnam. Demographic characteristics (older age, being male, being unmarried, and having informal work) appeared to be predictors for smoking and drinking behaviour. Besides, peer and family members had significant influence on smoking, whereas having a close-friend who was smoking was the most important variable. The results suggested that smoking and harmful drinking should not be solved with separate, stand-alone interventions but rather with integrated efforts.