Johor Chief Minister YAB Dato' Haji Abdul Ghani Othman speaking at the launch of the South East Asia Community Observatory.

The Johor Chief Minister recently launched the newly-established South East Asian Community Observatory (SEACO), an initiative led by Monash University Sunway campus.

SEACO is a 'community health laboratory' located within a 'real life' social, cultural, political, economic and physical environment will generate rich, innovative and relevant evidence to contribute to interdisciplinary developments across (amongst others) public health, social and environmental sciences, demography, human geography, and clinical and biomedical sciences.

It is modelled after successful Demographic and Health Surveillance Systems (DHSS) in other countries. SEACO represents an international collaboration of world-ranked universities from Australia, the US, Europe, and the region to establish a significant research program in community health and well-being.

The observatory is a joint effort between Monash University Australia, Monash University Sunway campus and the University of Copenhagen.

YAB Dato’ Haji Abdul Ghani, when delivering the launch address, said that chronic non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, stroke and cancers were increasingly a major problem for communities regardless of economic status, location, racial group or gender.

“They involve behavioural and lifestyle choices such as access to different types of food options, the care of our aging populations, how families interact to remain healthy and successfully address health problems when they occur, and the management of chronic ill health both in communities and with the health sector,” he said.

The Chief Minister was speaking at a dinner function hosted by SEACO in Johor Baru.

SEACO, said YAB Dato’ Haji Abdul Ghani, was a great example of how a cross faculty, cross-disciplinary and multi-institutional collaboration could work together with communities to find possible working solutions that would address these issues.

SEACO Director Professor Dr Daniel Reidpath said that the observatory would provide a platform to explore solutions to population-based problems that took account of the complexities of life in a middle income country with ongoing challenges of poverty and development, effects of globalisation and rapid industrialisation.

“The growing burden of non-communicable diseases cannot be ignored, particularly in middle income countries. There is evidence to demonstrate diabetes rates in excess of 15% in some sections of the population in Malaysia,” Prof Reidpath, a professor in population health at Monash University Sunway campus, said.

“There is still limited understanding of the cultural and contextual drivers of this, or appropriate solutions for diagnosis, health promotion, prevention and management. Furthermore, the management of NCDs complicates and is complicated by co-occurrence of infectious diseases such as TB, HIV and dengue,” he elaborated.

As an extension of the pilot program, SEACO has chosen Segamat in Johor as the location to establish its DHSS field site.

Segamat is also the site for rural health placements for students pursuing the Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) course at Monash University Sunway campus, which Dr Reidpath said would benefit both the medical students and the project as a whole.

“The Jeffrey Cheah School of Medicine and Health Sciences has a strong working relationship with the community of Segamat through the rural placement of first and second year MBBS students, and we hope that SEACO will strengthen our relationship with the community further,” he added.

SEACO partners include the Harvard School of Public Health, University of Amsterdam, the INDEPTH Network, Monash University Accident Research Centre, Queens University, Belfast, and Malaysia’s University of Malaya through the Centre of Epidemiology and Population Health.

Johor Chief Minister YAB Dato' Haji Abdul Ghani Othman signs on commemorative plaque as Monash University Sunway campus' Head of Jeffrey Cheah School of Medicine and Health Sciences Prof Dato' Dr Anuar Zaini Md Zain looks on.