The Health Promotion Administration (HPA) of the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) and the Asia-Pacific Academic Consortium for Public Health - Collaborating Centers Health Promotion (APACPH CCHP) organized the “2023 Asia Pacific Health Promotion and Non-Communicable Disease Prevention Workshop,” at the College of Public Health, National Taiwan University, and successfully concluded on July 20, 2023. The workshop invited four distinguished speakers: Mr. Choon Hong Tay, Chief Executive Officer of the Health Promotion Board, Ministry of Health, Singapore; Dr. Yik Ying Teo, Dean of the National University of Singapore's Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health; Dr. Masamine Jimba, Professor Emeritus at the University of Tokyo, Japan; and Mr. Chih-Cheng Hsu, Deputy Director of the Institute of Population Health Sciences at the National Health Research Institutes (NHRI) in Taiwan, along with other national and international officials and scholars. Over a hundred experts, scholars, and health officials from 15 countries participated in this workshop.

　　Established in 1984, the Asia-Pacific Academic Consortium for Public Health (APACPH) is the largest and most influential non-profit international organization and dedicated to improving professional education for public health. The HPA and APACPH jointly established the Collaborating Centres for Health Promotion (CCHP) in 2017, with the main objective of enhancing the core competencies of health promotion for public health professionals in the Asia-Pacific region. CCHP has organized more than 20 international seminars/forums, education and training workshops as well as related events both domestically and internationally, with the aim to enhance Taiwan’s visibility in the Asia-Pacific and the New Southbound Policy countries, to promote the cultivation of public health professionals, and to build strong regional partnerships.

Government-Academia Collaboration to Enhance Health Promotion, Prevention of Non-Communicable Diseases, and Empowerment of Public Health Workforce

　　The workshop invited four official representatives and scholars from Singapore's Health Promotion Board, the National University of Singapore, the University of Tokyo, and Taiwan's National Health Research Institutes. The main focus of the workshop was on the policy-making and case study development of NCDs, as well as the six core competencies of health promotion. During the event, the distinguished speakers shared insights from their respective countries on the health promotion and prevention of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Mr. Tay Choon Hong, Chief Executive Officer of the Health Promotion Board, Singapore, shared insights on how to leverage health promotion policies, multi-sectoral collaboration, and big data technology to create a healthier nation. Dr. Yik Ying Teo, Dean of the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, National University of Singapore, emphasized the importance of partnerships between government officials and academia in jointly developing evidence-based public policies. Prof. Masamine Jimba from the University of Tokyo explained how the field of population health sciences can be applied in policy development and case studies related to NCDs. Mr. Chih-Cheng Hsu, Deputy Director of the Institute of Community Health Sciences, National Institutes of Health, MOHW, shared Taiwan's precision health community practices to meet the challenges of a super-aged society. After the presentations, the guests engaged in in-depth discussions on policy development and practices with the scholars and health officials of Taiwan.

Mutual Learning Through the CCHP Platform for Global Action Against NCDs

　　Dr. Chao-Chun Wu, Director-General of the Health Promotion Administration, noted that this workshop featured official and academic perspectives from three top Asian countries. Mutual exchanges and learning is achieved through the CCHP platform, which can help broaden the international perspectives of Taiwan’s health officials and all local and international participants, which promotes global collaboration in combating non-communicable diseases. Dr. Wu expressed his hope for more collaboration and interactions among all participants in the future.