The burden of cancer and non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in Vietnam has been surging and will only continue to rise. Cancer and other NCD research in Vietnam, however, has been very scant and is limited by the paucity of well-trained researchers, inadequate infrastructure, and lack of population-based cancer registries. To address these challenges, we plan to establish a US-China-Vietnam partnership to consolidate expertise and mobilize resources from multiple institutes to build an RCRE for cancer and other NCD research in Vietnam. The short-term goals for the RCRE are: to assess Vietnam?s unique health needs by means of a national consultative meeting in order to define priorities in NCD research; and to identify Vietnam?s current limitations in NCD research capabilities and infrastructure with a goal of building research capacity. The latter will be achieved through the delivery of an in-country workshop, site visits to Vanderbilt University and Shanghai partner institutes, two short-term visiting scholarships, and by conducting two demonstration research projects, which will include the development of research protocols and survey instruments and the collection of biospecimens. Through these research activities, we will establish three research support cores: a Survey Research Support Core, a Biospecimen Processing and Biorepository Core, and a Biostatistics and Informatics Support Core, which together will comprise the essential infrastructure and resources needed to support population- based epidemiological studies for NCD. The two demonstration research projects will focus on investigating the influence of westernization on breast cancer and diabetes, two diseases of significant public health concern in Vietnam. The biospecimens collected in the research projects, the experience gained by RCRE investigators, and the results generated will set the stage for the initiation of a general population-based cohort study for NCD research and a cancer survival cohort in the near future (a middle-term goal). The workshop plus the 2-month visiting scholarship training at the Shanghai CDC will be designed to help Vietnam establish a population-based cancer registry and enhance its cancer registry functions (a middle-term goal). Our long-term goal is to establish an RCRE that is self-sustaining with respect to resources and technology, staffed with well-trained investigators who possess the capability to lead high-impact NCD research and training in Vietnam. We also expect that the accomplishments and benefits accruing from this successful RCRE will extend beyond Vietnam to nearby LMIC countries.
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| Mukhtar, Fahad; Boffetta, Paolo; Dabo, Bashir et al. (2018) Disparities by race, age, and sex in the improvement of survival for lymphoma: Findings from a population-based study. PLoS One 13:e0199745 |
