Literature has documented that between 1962 and 1971, U.S. military forces sprayed approximately 76.9 million liters of herbicides over Central and South Vietnam, in which Agent Orange (AO) accounted for much of the total chemical sprayed^1,2. It was estimated that there are between 2.1 to 4.8 million potential or silent sprayed victims, whose lives have been irrevocably affected¹, neither including victims later poisoned by food chain nor their offspring.

Da Nang, Bien Hoa and Phu Cat air bases were identified as three out of seven dioxin hot spots in Vietnam, those served as bulk storages and supply facilities for AO during Operation Ranch Hand. Elevated dioxin in soil, sediment, some types of local foods, and human blood were recently reported at these areas.^4,5,6 Vietnam Public Health Association (VPHA) is a nonprofit and professional organization. The Association has been gradually become a wide network of PH all over the country, collecting and sharing information and resources for PH activities. VPHA also express its role as an advocacy organization on PH issues to the Ministry of Health and the government. The works have been implementing by VPHA focus on local-based priority problems namely preventing dioxin exposure through foods, anti-smoking, promoting safe pesticide storage and use, injury prevention, HIV/AIDS and dengue fever prevention. It recently recognize that policy advocacy is also an area that include in its functions. Reports have documented some successful in implementing these projects both in their direct visible impacts and in the stable development of the partnership between academic people and local PHA members.

In recognizing the role of VPHA, in 2006, the Ford Foundation supported VPHA with a grant to reduce the risk of dioxin exposure through foods chain for local people at Bien Hoa City using a public health approach. A baseline survey and a qualitative study were implemented, which indicates that local people had a very limited knowledge and poor practices toward preventing dioxin exposure through foods consumption (the main route of dioxin exposures at dioxin hot-spots).⁸ Based on these results, a public consultation conference was held to disseminate the results and also to get involvement of related local stakeholders to develop a public health intervention program. This multi-approach intervention model includes three major components: Training; Mass communication at communal level; and Advocate for policy changes has been implemented since early 2008. This has been seen as a very first public health intervention program ever been implemented in Vietnam to reduce the risks of dioxin exposure through consuming contaminated foods for local residents at dioxin hot spots. The findings from the pilot includes: It is possible that public health approach intervention can immediately serve as a tool for protecting people those who are living in the hot-spots while other solutions are still under-consideration since their time and money consuming problems; and a community and participatory based approach will be the most cost-effectiveness intervention to reduce people to exposure to Dioxin at local setting. These findings has been reported internationally in Birmingham conference on Dioxin, 2008 and drawn a lot of attention from audiences.

The results of the advocacy conference in Bien Hoa also showed that Dioxin issue has received unequal consideration. While overall population is overestimated the health consequences of exposing to Dioxin, they are not equipped with sufficient knowledge to protect themselves from the risk.

With this first encouraging results, Vietnam Public Health Association would like to propose to the Ford Foundation our concerns and hope to be further supported for applying this approach to Da Nang, the other two worst dioxin hotspots in Vietnam. This project would again be focusing on preventing dioxin exposure for local residents taking into account the socio-economic and culture differences between these two hot-spots and the one in Bien Hoa, Dong Nai. With experiences, which has gotten in Bien Hoa, we can almost certain of the success of the project. 

1. Goals and objectives:

The overall goal: This project aims at reducing the health consequences of dioxin for local people through reducing dioxin exposure due to consuming dioxin contaminated foods by using public health intervention approach

Objectives

1. Evaluating the impact of the intervention project implemented in Bien Hoa, Dong Nai thus to assess the effectiveness of the intervention model for further expanding to other hotspots in Da Nang.
2. Determining health risks due to dioxin exposure at local settings in Da Nang hot spot.
3. Reducing the health risk of dioxin exposure through food consumption for local people at dioxin hot spots in Da Nang
4. Raising the awareness of Dioxin risk and its preventable solutions among central and local government and related agencies in Da Nang.
5. Strengthening the professional and managerial capacities of Vietnam Public Health Association and  Da Nang Public Health Association through a concrete exercise of protecting health of the communities where dioxin has been available at a much higher level, and may cause health problems to communities.