Good Health and Well-Being

This review examines telemedicine practices, which are separated into teleconsultations and telemonitoring, that have applied information and communication technologies (ICT) for the delivery of health-care services to older persons in the Republic of Korea, Japan, Australia and China. The practices featured from the Republic of Korea and Japan are telemedicine pilot projects to manage chronic disease patients more efficiently and at lower cost. The projects included a health management curriculum, with emphasis on nutrition and exercise guidance. The participants in each pilot project found the services to be helpful in managing their health; the project evaluation findings also indicated several meaningful medical improvements. In Australia, a Home Monitoring of Chronic Disease for Aged Care Project was designed in 2014 to manage ageing patients with chronic diseases at home through various telemedicine devices. In China, the Ningbo Cloud Hospital was established in 2015 to control increasing health-care expenses and to resolve difficulties for individuals to see a doctor. More than 2,000 patients are now registered for online video consultations and prescriptions. The featured examples illustrate how the application of telemedicine to a health-care system not only promotes accessibility between doctors and patients but can save on construction costs for new facilities and the cost of supplying medical personnel in remote areas, which thus can help reduce national medical expenses. However, to initiate ICT-based health-care service delivery, governments in Asia and the Pacific need to first establish related policies that promote telemedicine.

Singapore is one of the first Asian countries to have adopted a vigorous population programme as part of its socio-economic development strategy. In 1966, when the Singapore Government established the Singapore Family Planning and Population Board (SFPPB) to offer family planning services and to disseminate the small family norm, the population was growing at about 2 per cent per year and the total fertility rate (TFR) stood at 4.7. Having just separated from Malaysia, Singapore was trying hard to gain a firm political and economic footing. The withdrawal of foreign military personnel based in Singapore further aggravated the unsettling economic base. The need to curb rapid population growth was obvious, and population control was viewed as critical in balancing the available economic resources with the demands of an increasing population.

With the development of its family planning programme, China has achieved great success since the 1970s in slowing the growth of its population. This is evident in the rapid decline in fertility: the total fertility rate (TFR) declined from the 1960s average of 5.68 to 4.0 in the 1970s and to only 2.46 for the first eight years of the 1980s.

The populations of most developing countries have been growing rapidly in recent decades. During the 1970s and 1980s, the number of persons of working age has often grown even faster than total populations. The struggle to provide enough employment for a burgeoning labour force often fails, resulting in high unemployment plus a large part of the working population “visibly underemployed” (working fewer hours or days than they would like) or “invisibly underemployed” (doing work of extremely low productivity for low income or underutilizing skills).

Thailand is in a relatively advantageous position compared with most other countries in the region with respect to data to document trends and patterns of breast-feeding and related infant feeding practices. Relevant questions, even if not always strictly comparable, have been included in a series of nationally representative surveys conducted during the last two decades. The information provided by these surveys makes clear that a trend towards a decline in the duration of breast-feeding was underway during the decade of the 1970s, but that during the 1980s the decline halted. In addition, the proportion initiating breastfeeding was high throughout the two-decade period and appears to have recently increased to the point where, at the national level, it is now close to universal.

Myanmar is experiencing relatively high fertility and declining mortality rates. In 1973, the population size was nearly 29 million. It increased to 35 million in 1983 with an annual intercensal growth rate of 2.02 per cent (Union of Burma, 1986a; Part 1, p. 14). Since 1948, when it became independent, Myanmar has struggled for economic development and an improved quality of life. But there have been many obstacles and socioeconomic development remains the main challenge to be met. Successive attempts have been made by means of various short- and long-term plans.

The clinical efficacy of various contraceptive methods is well known. However, relatively little is known about their use-effectiveness (which refers to both technical failure of a method and the failure to use a method properly in actual life conditions, especially in developing countries). Use-effectiveness data for programme as well as non-programme methods are necessary for assessing the impact of contraceptive use on fertility (Bongaarts and Potter, 1983).

The population of Cambodia will reach 9.0 million in 1992. It is estimated to be currently growing at a rate near 2.5 per cent per annum, or an absolute increase of about 220,000 persons a year, according to the Department of Statistics (DOS), Ministry of Planning, Government of Cambodia.

Policy measures, in their dimensions, urgency and intensity, should differ between Bangladesh’s metrocities.