Effectiveness of Village Health Volunteer Parallel Program for Proactive Action to Reduce Risk Factors for Cholangiocarcinoma in Two High-Risk Countries in the Greater Mekong Subregion

Abstract

Thailand and Laos were classified as risk areas for cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) in a 2017 assessment in the Greater Mekong Subregion. In 2019, the potential of village health volunteers (VHVs) in both risk areas was developed. The VHVs trained in 2014 (VHV-A) were mentors transferring knowledge of CCA prevention to the trainees (known as VHV-B) in a parallel manner. After that, VHV-Bs in each area educated people to change their behavior. Both parties worked in the same direction to reduce risk factors. In 2020, data were collected after the program was organized in the same populations. The people were aged 30-69 years, whose names were in the civil registration, and had lived in that area for at least five years. Afterward, no less than 172 participants from each location were randomly selected. The research tools used were intervention and questionnaires. Descriptive and inferential statistics were employed for data analysis. After the experiment, all the experimental group’s risk factors were significantly different from those of the control group. This study’s outcome was an effective program for proactive action in reducing risk factors in the risk areas. Therefore, it should be applied to reduce risk factors for CCA in other regions.

Acknowledgments

We would like to express our sincere gratitude to the directors, public health officers, VHVs, community leaders, and people voluntarily participating in this research in both areas for cooperation and facilitating in doing activities and data collection until this research was well accomplished.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Authors’ Contributions

NS, SB, and CT conceived and designed the research. PC, TS, and VB were responsible for connecting and coordinating the fieldwork. NS, CT, MR, TS, and VB collected the data. NS and SW carried out the analyses. NS and AA reviewed drafts of the paper. All authors contributed to the writing and revisions of the manuscript and approved the final version.

Additional information

Funding

This research was financially supported by the Ubon Ratchathani Rajabhat University, the research funding for lecturers and staff. It was a foreign network fund, Fiscal Year 2019.