PSI - Population Services International Vietnam

Established in 2005, PSI/Vietnam is affiliated with an international network spanning more than 50 countries around the world. PSI/Vietnam has used social marketing techniques to fill market gaps and motivate improved health behaviors related to safe water and hygiene, undernutrition, hypertension, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and viral hepatitis. With the goal of strengthening the national health system, PSI/Vietnam’s interventions focus on building the private sector’s capacity and commitment to providing quality, affordable health products and services. Communications campaigns designed around insights about what matters most to underserved consumers position healthier behaviors in terms that resonate with target audiences and, together with improved access to essential products and services, prompt behavior change. Behavioral and market-transformation results achieved by PSI/Vietnam have been acknowledged by the Ministry of Health and other partners within Vietnam and have been published in international peer-reviewed journals.

Despite impressive improvements in Vietnam’s development and health macro-indicators over the past decade, gains have not been equitable, and significant unmet health needs remain. Limited sanitation services, unsafe water and poor hygiene practices are leading causes of pneumonia and diarrhea, which account for nearly one-third of deaths among children under five years old in Vietnam.

One in three children is undernourished, contributing to high national rates of stunting. Rapid development is also ushering in a host of new health challenges to the Vietnamese people, such as an escalating HIV epidemic in most-at-risk populations. Vietnam has the eleventh highest tuberculosis burden globally, and the national prevalence rate of hepatitis C is ten times that of HIV. Stroke is the leading cause of death among adult men and women in Vietnam — largely linked to undiagnosed and untreated hypertension. Only 43% of adults with hypertension in Vietnam have been diagnosed, and of these only 14% are on treatment. 

More than a third of adolescent females have unmet need for contraception, and maternal mortality rates in rural areas are three times that of urban provinces.