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Aging populations are gradually creating financial distress for governments, and Thailand is no exception. Effective policies for improving elderly welfare must be formulated since the population shift to older age is moving at a faster pace than economic growth. Older people prefer to live actively and independently in order to be less burdensome to their family members and are actively engaged in activities, either voluntarily or because of necessity, even after retirement age. The Thai government initiated a microcredit scheme for eligible older people in order to overcome the difficulty of gaining access to credit. The objective of this research is to explore and evaluate the effectiveness of the Older Persons Fund (OPF) organized by the Thai government to provide seed money for loans to promote active aging in Thailand. Data were collected nationwide using stratified sampling in urban and rural districts from members affiliated with the Older Persons Fund. Structured interviews were conducted with 578 loan recipients. The methodology includes inferential statistics and the multinomial logit choice probabilities model to determine the factors for successful active aging of the loan recipients. The results indicate that the purpose of the loan is a significant factor for a successful outcome. The results also imply that older people provide input into the economy and are not a burden on government expenditure in the long run by promoting active aging projects through microcredit schemes in Thailand.

Opioid use and misuse are understudied in Thailand despite evidence suggesting that a portion of young Thai male integrated drug users are initiating use of non-medical prescribed opioids with some transitioning to heroin. This study aims to capture and analyze the individual and social factors influencing these transitions. Twenty in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted between December 2019 and January 2020 in the Bangkok metropolitan area with young male opioid users who transitioned to heroin. Sixteen respondents initiated opioid through a Tramadol cocktail named "YaPro" and tended to transition to heroin use within 21 months. The interaction of specific social and individual factors such as joining recreational activities, curiosity or experimentation gradually modified the opioid-related meanings, attitude and practices of Thai users, who ultimately transition to heroin use. These results indicate that drug prevention programs in Thailand should encompass young opioid users in their intervention and further research need to focus on nonmedical use of prescription opioids in Thailand.

This scoping review mapped out the relevant literature, identified gaps and made suggestions on the influence of cisgender on the health literacy (HL) of the elderly people. This scoping review was guided by the PRISMA-ScR checklist. The databases Wiley Online Library™ and Elsevier™ were searched for academic articles published in the English language between February 2011 and February 2021 that met a pre-set criteria of content. The process of selection of sources of evidence based on screening and eligibility of evidence reduced the initially identified 153 sources of evidence in the searched databases to 14 sources of evidence. The content of these 14 sources of evidence was mapped out on a charting table where data was summarised and synthesised individually and collectively by the authors. Repetitive and irrelevant data were deleted. Identified gaps include the lack of extensive exploration of male and female genders alone as a determinant of HL, how gender may be utilised to encourage elderly men and women to apply HL, how different sociocultural and sociodemographic backgrounds of elderly men and women would require separate academic research, the scarcity of social sciences based research and qualitative research methodologies on the subject as well as the use of mixed-methodologies and longitudinal studies. Future research directions were suggested and limitations of this scoping review are addressed in the discussion.

This scoping review mapped out the relevant literature, identified gaps and made suggestions on the subject of the health needs of family caregivers (FC) of elderly stroke survivors (ESS). The authors utilised the PRISMA-ScR checklist to guide the scoping review. The databases PubMed, Elsevier and BioMed Central were searched for academic articles published in the English Language between the years 2010 and 2020 that met a pre-set criteria of content on the health needs of FC of ESS. The process of selection of sources of evidence based on screening and eligibility of evidence reduced the initially identified 13,303 sources of evidence in the searched databases to five sources of evidence. The content of these five sources of evidence was mapped out on a charting table where data was summarised and synthesised first individually and then collectively by the authors. Repetitive and irrelevant data were removed collectively by the authors from the charting table. The gaps identified were a paucity of research on the subject of health needs of FC of ESS, lack of longitudinal and mixed-methods research on the health needs of FC of ESS, sparse use of social sciences perspectives and theories, research that addresses specific physical and mental health concerns beyond general descriptions and gaps in information, social networks, interventions, health policy and systems. Future research directions were suggested and a limitation of this scoping review are addressed in the discussion.