What we are
ABOUT THAIHEALTH
Thai Health Promotion Foundation (ThaiHealth) is an autonomous government agency established by the Health Promotion Foundation Act in 2001.
Dr. Pongthep Wongwatcharapaiboon
CEO, ThaiHealth Promotion Foundation (ThaiHealth).
Our vision
“All people living in Thailand have capability and live in society and environment conducive to good health.”
By “All people in Thailand,” it is meant that every person in Thailand, regardless of one’s race or nationality, is included in ThaiHealth’s vision.
The latter part of our vision emphasizes the significance of “society and environment” that is supportive to healthy lifestyle. This part of vision is reflected in ThaiHealth’s programs which do not only promote individual’s capacity to adopt healthy lifestyle, but rather strive to work on the social structure and environment to make healthier choices easier choices.
Our mission
“To inspire, motivate, coordinate, and empower individuals and organizations in all sectors for the enhancement of health promotive capability as well as healthy society and environment to support health promotion movement in Thailand.”
ThaiHealth positions itself as a catalyst, which is mentioned in our mission as “to inspire, motivate, coordinate, and empower.” This allows ThaiHealth to utilize its limited resources in the most effective way.
Revenue
ThaiHealth’s annual revenue of about 120 million USD is derived from surcharged 2 percent of the excise taxes on tobacco and alcohol collecting directly from tobacco and alcohol producers and importers.
TRI-POWER STRATEGY
“Tri-Power Strategy”
employed by ThaiHealth was based on Dr. Prawase Wasi’s ‘Triangle that Moves the Mountain.” The immovable ‘Mountain’ symbolizes the extreme difficulty in bringing about social change. This strategy indicates that strengthening three interconnected angles of the triangle or sectors is necessary to address the multi-pronged public health issues.
The three angles of Tri-power Strategy are:
1) Creation of knowledge;
2) Social mobilization;
3) Policy advocacy.
An excellent example was the use of sin taxes to fund the establishment of ThaiHealth through a triad of organizations, namely the Anti-Smoking Campaign Project of the Moh-Chao-Ban Foundation (society), the Office of Thai Trade Competition Commission, OTCC (politics and policy), and Health Systems Research Institute or HSRI (knowledge). Because of their multi-faceted approach, when the OTCC was unable to generate necessary policy changes, the focus of work shifted to the HSRI to take over the lead to synthesize knowledge served as a link between these organizations.
ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE
ThaiHealth is governed by a Board of Governance as well as an Evaluation Board. It also uses a series of expert advisory committees. The Board of Governance has a multi-sectoral structure. Chaired by the Prime Minister with Minister of Public Health as the first Vice-Chairman and an independent expert as the Second Vice-Chairman, the board members comprise representatives from nine ministries and eight independent experts from various disciplines.
