May 17th, 2013

Focusing on comparative health care policy in Asia

Comparative, policy-oriented research aimed at improving health care and the overall quality of life across the Asia-Pacific region is at the heart of AHPP's mission and activities. Read more »

April 15th, 2013

Overseas Filipino Workers become economic heroes

To their family members and to the Philippine government, Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) are the country's “new heroes.” Postdoctoral fellow Marjorie Pajaron talks about her research on the significant economic benefit of OFW remittances. Read more »

March 20th, 2013

U.S. and Asia experts seek solutions to economic aspects of aging in China and India

How China and India resolve the challenge of supporting their elderly while maintaining economic advancement despite shrinking working-age cohorts will strongly shape their future and may provide valuable lessons. Karen Eggleton describes key issues in each country, and research finding presented during a recent Stanford-Harvard policy dialogue. Video available conference agenda available
Read more »

March 14th, 2013

Development and health economist to join as postdoctoral fellow

This autumn, AHPP will welcome development and health economist Margaret Triyana as the 2013-14 Asia Health Policy Postdoctoral Fellow. Triyana will focus on analyzing the effects of rural-urban migration on children's health outcomes in China and Indonesia Read more »

February 28th, 2013

Despite significant reform, gaps remain in China's health care system

Despite significant efforts to reform health care in China, says Karen Eggleston, coverage is "wide but shallow." Eggleston has written about the Chinese government's ambitious reforms.

• » Newsweek
• » Milken Institute Review

August 28th, 2012

Visitors a vibrant part of the Asia Health Policy Program

The Asia-Health Policy Program (AHPP) is one of several Stanford organizations seeking solutions to major global health issues through a comparative study of the health policies of different countries. Visiting fellows and scholars from Asia play an integral part in AHPP’s research, publishing, and outreach activities. Read more »

August 20th, 2012

Stanford experts propose new ideas for governments dealing with old age

Stanford health economists Karen Eggleston and Victor Fuchs offer an innovative view of the global aging phenomenon in an article published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives. Read more »

June 21st, 2012

Study examines school textbook information on malaria

How well do textbooks educate school children about malaria prevention and treatment? AHPP's Siyan Yi took part in a study that examined textbooks from countries with high Malaria rates -- Laos, Cambodia, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Zambia, Niger, Benin, and Ghana -- and recently published its findings in the open-access journal PLoS ONE.

• » Content Analysis of Primary and Secondary School Textbooks Regarding Malaria Control: A Multi-Country Study

May 31st, 2012

New study exposes teenagers' easy access to cigarettes in China

May 31 was the WHO World No Tobacco Day. The Pioneers for Health Consultancy Center, a China-based non-governmental organization with close collaborative ties to AHPP's Matthew Kohrman, recently conducted an extensive study of stores in Kunming, a city in the heart of China’s tobacco-growing region, that sell cigarettes to teenagers.

• » China Daily article

May 24th, 2012

New Stanford Asia Health Policy research fellows selected

AHPP looks forward to welcoming its incoming 2012-13 research fellows from Mongolian Medical University, the University of Hawai'i, and Harvard. AHPP's new fellows specialize in research topics including cervical cancer prevention, migrant remittances, and the political economy of support for the elderly. Read more »

May 2nd, 2012

China provides universal health insurance at a fraction of the cost

Chinese officials are developing a social security network to meet the challenges of a rapidly changing demographic landscape. Karen Eggleston discusses the success of China’s health care reforms and the long road ahead. Read more »

March 28th, 2012

Exploring China's formidable cigarette industry

How has the cigarette become so integrated into the fabric of everyday life across the People's Republic of China? To get to the heart of this question, a diverse group of experts met Mar. 26 and 27 in Beijing. In an interview, conference lead Matthew Kohrman spoke about the history of China's cigarette industry, cigarettes and society, and the growing tobacco-control movement. Read more »

March 26th, 2012

China must invest more in rural children, say Stanford scholars

As China's economy grows so does the prevalence of social inequality. In a YaleGlobal Online article, a team of Shorenstein APARC China experts says the country must invest more now in education and public health programs for its rural children or it will face major growth challenges in the near future.

• » Comparative Policy Responses to Demographic Change in East Asia
• » YaleGlobal Online article

February 1st, 2012

New Asia Pacific Observatory represents unique regional partnership

The Asia Pacific Observatory of Health Systems and Policies is a new regional initiative to promote evidence-based health policymaking in the Asia-Pacific region. The Observatory represents a unique partnership of governments, development agencies, and the research community working together. Read more »

December 15th, 2011

Getting to the roots of the tobacco industry

Tobacco now kills 90 times more people each year than HIV/AIDS in China. China's tobacco industry is closely tied to the global industry, and the Asia Health Policy Program is working to establish a new field of research on its history, beginning with a Mar. 2012 conference at the new Stanford Center at Peking University. Robert Proctor, a Stanford historian and author of a groundbreaking new book on the global tobacco industry, will take part.

• » Stanford Report: Tobacco industry dying? Not so fast, says Stanford expert

November 11th, 2011

Cambodia's successful battle against HIV/AIDS

When Siyan Yi was a medical student in Cambodia 12 years ago, he volunteered with a collaborative government-NGO project to provide young women at high risk for HIV/AIDS -- the victims of sexual exploitation -- with housing, vocational training, medical care, and psychological support. Cambodia at that time had one of Asia’s highest HIV-infection rates. That rate has dropped by half, thanks to government policy measures, international NGO support, and the efforts of medical professionals like Yi. Read more »

October 13th, 2011

Possible new trends in caring for China's elderly

As lifestyles in China are changing, so too is the ability for people to care for their elderly family members at home. American healthcare companies are beginning to eye China as a potential market for senior residential facilities. Asia Health Policy Program director Karen Eggleston spoke with NPR about possible models for providing affordable, quality care for China's elderly.

• » NPR: U.S. assisted living model to be tried in China

August 9th, 2011

Kohrman's ground-breaking study of cigarette warning labels

What influence might graphic warning labels have on cigarette sales? Matthew Kohrman is studying that question with experimental methods in Southwest China. Kohrman’s research is generating much-needed data in support of the expansion of China’s warning label system. Among the countries increasingly adopting graphic labels, the United States will require visual warnings on all cigarette packages by next fall.

Stanford Cancer Center News: Smoking cessation in a land of two trillion cigarettes

July 22nd, 2011

Eggleston considers China's ability to adjust to demographic change

Can social, economic, and policy changes turn a period of growing old-age dependency into one of positive opportunity and growth in China? Qiong Zhang and Asia Health Policy Program director Karen Eggleston explore this challenging question in a recent China Brief article. They look back into several decades of China's history and also consider the current demographic picture of one-child families, gender imbalance, declining fertility rates, and a healthy and prosperous aging population.

• » China Brief: Aging economics: China's population imbalance

May 19th, 2011

Innovative student research focusing on the Asia-Pacific region

As an undergraduate student majoring in East Asian studies, Crystal Zheng spent two summers conducting extensive HIV/AIDS-related field research in China's Yunnan province and Shenzhen special economic zone. Zheng worked closely with primary thesis advisor Karen Eggleston, director of the Asia Health Policy Program (AHPP) at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center. In the end, the project shaped the direction of her future academic and professional interests as well as contributed to potentially far-reaching program improvements for a key health policy challenge in China. In the short time since its 2007 founding, AHPP has empowered the research of numerous Stanford University students like Zheng -- emerging scholars, researchers, and thought leaders -- through its teaching and mentoring activities. Read more »

May 11th, 2011

Give new smoking ban time, suggests China tobacco health expert Matthew Kohrman

Tobacco is the single greatest cause of preventable death in the world today, including in China where cigarette smoking is a popular pastime. "The [tobacco] industry in China is run by the Tobacco Monopoly Administration, a central government administrative body created in the 1980s, also known as China Tobacco Corp.," said Matthew Kohrman in a February 2011 interview with NPR's Morning Edition. China nonetheless issued a nationwide indoor smoking ban on May 1. Speaking with Al Jazeera English on the first day of the ban, Kohrman predicted that Chinese citizens will increasingly comply with the ban even if in fits and starts initially. "It all has to do with implementation," he suggested. "It all has to do with changing the culture of smoking and people’s thinking about it—that takes time."

• » NPR: China dependent on tobacco in more ways than one
• » Al Jazeera English: China starts national ban on indoor cigarette smoking

May 6th, 2011

Tobacco-control efforts in China and beyond: Recent work of AHPP faculty affiliate Matthew Kohrman

In the past year, AHPP faculty affiliate Matthew Kohrman published in the Asia-Pacific Journal of Public Health a critical assessment of international anti-tobacco interventions. He has also been quoted in Science, Harvard Global Health Review, and Stanford University News regarding tobacco-control efforts in China and around the world.

• » Science: A sense of crisis as China confronts ailments of affluence
• » Harvard Global Health Review: Butting out: China's anti-smoking efforts
• » Stanford Global Tobacco Prevention Research Initiative: Where are all those 'cancer sticks' produced?: Pinpointing the factories
• » Stanford News: Mapping cigarette factories around the world

March 16th, 2011

New Asia Health Policy Postdoctoral Fellows

The Asia Health Policy Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) is pleased to announce its new Asia Health Policy Postdoctoral Fellows: Ang Sun of Brown University (2011-2012) and Yuki Tagaki of Harvard University (2012-2013). The research of these two postdoctoral fellows will complement the Shorenstein APARC research initiative on demographic change in East Asia. Read more »

March 10th, 2011

AHPP welcomes inaugural Developing Asia Health Policy Fellow

The Asia Health Policy Program is delighted to announce the inauguration of a fellowship program for young health policy experts from developing countries in Asia. The first Developing Asia Health Policy Fellow will be Dr. Siyan Yi from Cambodia. Cambodia has recently created a School of Public Health and is facing an increasing burden of chronic disease, while the burden from infectious diseases such as tuberculosis remains significant. Since Dr. Yi's research interests lie in health promotion and risky behaviors, he could someday be instrumental in helping to set policies to address the public health challenges Cambodia will face. Read more »

February 11th, 2011

Comparative policy responses to demographic change in East Asia

East Asia's demographic landscape is rapidly changing and comparative academic research is crucial to help guide well-informed decisions in the many policy areas that are affected, such as security, economics, and immigration. From January 20 to 21, the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center gathered subject experts from numerous fields for two days of lively and productive presentations and dialogue to help identify key research issues and questions for its new, three-year research initiative on this significant subject. A public panel discussion was held on January 20, featuring eight scholars from across the United States and Asia. The issue of aging featured prominently in their presentations, as did fertility rates and immigration. A full audio recording of the panel discussion and summaries of the presentations are now available. Read more »