Nutrition and the environmental situation in Bangkok

Bangkok, the capital of Thailand, is a large city of about six million people. According to the rapid growth of economy, Bangkok faces to the problems of urbanization and industrialization. Non-communicable disease such as cardiovascular diseases, cancers are the leading causes of death. There is a trend of increasing air pollution in the congested areas and industrialized zones, with the increase over the ambient air quality standard involving suspended particulate matter. Other public health problems include the sanitation of restaurants, the quality of drinking water and coloring agents in food, drug addiction especially in young males. Poor hygiene in drug injection is one of the major causes of HIV transmission. AIDS, originally our imported disease, needs urgent prevention by health education and counseling. Improvements in government and non-government health care resources are still needed. A good cooperative city health plan serves a practical purpose, especially for the solution of the air and water pollution in Bangkok. However, pilot operational research on nutrition, health and environment in relation to city health planning needs to be discussed further for more effective implementation.