LASER PULSE’s capacity-building project supports the 2024 Greater Mekong Subregion Public Health Conference in Luang Prabang, Laos

Capacity strengthening is at the heart of LASER PULSE’s Applied Nutrition Research Capacity Building (ANRCB) project, which is nearing the end of its 5th and final year. Working with the Lao Ministry of Health, the Lao University of Health Sciences, and the Lao Tropical and Public Health Institute, the project supports several locally-led activities, including targeted training. Subject-matter specialists from Purdue University, Indiana University, and Cornell University provide research mentorship. Local implementation of the project is provided by Catholic Relief Services, which maintains a project office embedded in the Ministry of Health’s Nutrition Center. Over the past five years, these close partnerships and working relationships have ensured project activities are closely aligned with local institutional needs. They also boosted the chances of sustained impacts once the project officially ends.

This summer the project team has been busy bringing several activities to fruition. In addition to maintaining the project’s regular schedule of research webinars and newsletters, the team assisted the Lao Tropical and Public Health Institute in completing Lao PDR’s first-ever National Nutrition Research Agenda. This document, more than two years in the making and widely vetted across multiple Lao government ministries with responsibilities related to nutrition, provides a prioritized agenda for future nutrition research.

The team also helped support our project partners at the Lao University of Health Sciences (UHS) as they planned and hosted the 14th International Conference on Public Health among the Greater Mekong Sub-Region (GMS) countries. This conference, which was held from June 27-29 at the Pullman Hotel in Luang Prabang, brought together global participants including researchers from the core GMS countries of Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, and China, showcased a wide range of academic research from the region focused on the theme “Meeting the Sustainable Development Goals through Improved Nutrition, Health Equity, and Climate Change Adaptation.” ANRCB project partners were well-represented in the meeting chaired by our colleague Prof. Vanphanom Sychareun, Dean of the Faculty of Public Health at UHS. The ANRCB project had a prominent role at the conference, with research teams presenting their posters in the poster session, as well as a keynote address by ANRCB project team leader Dr. Gerald Shively, Purdue University, entitled “Nutrition Needs and a Changing Climate: Pathways, Evidence, and Action.”

In addition to participating in mainstage, poster, and parallel session events, the ANRCB team also led efforts in organizing a pre-conference workshop consisting of a series of eight learning labs on topics selected by our Lao partners. More than 400 conference attendees participated in eight, half-day learning labs, focused on topics, such as “Tools for Assessing Food Safety” and “Statistical Methods for Nutrition and Health Research.” This was the first time the GMS conference included a pre-conference workshop, an innovation introduced by the LASER ANRCB project which, based on its success, seems likely to become a mainstay of future GMS conferences.

The GMS conference was attended by more than 500 official participants and guests. The project and USAID sponsorship were visible at the conference, which served as a capstone event for the ANRCB project that will conclude later this year.