Vietnam Experience Research Articles

FARMERS' EXPERIENCES WITH LOW-PRESSURE DRIP IRRIGATION FOR VEGETABLE PRODUCTION IN SOUTHEAST ASIA AND THE PACIFIC

Low-pressure drip irrigation has been introduced to small-scale vegetable farmers in several countries in Asia and Africa for almost two decades, but adoption and impact of the technology have been limited due to several factors. This paper evaluates the performance of low-pressure and affordable drip irrigation kits developed and promoted by International Development Enterprises for vegetable production based on farmers’ experiences in Cambodia, Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Solomon Islands. On-farm, farmer-participatory demonstration trials were conducted using low-pressure drum and bucket kits with 1 m pressure head. In Cambodia, drip irrigation resulted in significant increase in water use efficiency (43%), yield (15%) and labor productivity (38%) in cucumber, eggplant, and yard-long bean. In the Philippines, drip irrigation increased average yields of vegetables by 35% despite unusually high rainfall in the dry season. Similar results were obtained from Indonesia, where there was no significant yield response of five vegetable crops to drip irrigation during the wet season but in the dry season drip irrigation improved yield and quality of chili pepper and reduced disease incidence. In Vietnam, drip irrigation increased average yield of vegetables by 8-11% and reduced labor input by 33%. In the Solomon Islands, unusual rainfall patterns even during the dry season negated the benefits of drip irrigation on vegetable production, but farmers claimed that drip irrigation reduced labor spent in watering the plots. A trial on tomato demonstrated the advantage of drip irrigation as shown in improved yield of 19%. Based on farmers’ experiences, the adoption and impact of affordable drip irrigation technology in Asia and Pacific is mainly determined by climate, particularly the rainfall pattern and growing season in addition to other related technical and socioeconomic factors.

Poverty Reduction and Economic Structure: Comparative Path Analysis for Mozambique and Vietnam

While economic growth generally reduces income poverty, there are pronounced differences in the strength of this relationship across countries. Typical explanations for this variation include measurement errors in growth–poverty accounting and different compositions of economic growth. We explore the additional influence of economic structure in determining a country's growth–poverty relationship and performance. Using structural path analysis, we compare the experiences of Mozambique and Vietnam—two countries with similar levels and compositions of economic growth but divergent poverty outcomes. We find that the structure of the Vietnamese economy more naturally lends itself to generating broad‐based growth. A given agricultural demand expansion in Mozambique will, ceteris paribus, achieve much less rural income growth than in Vietnam. Inadequate education, trade and transport systems are found to be more severe structural constraints to poverty reduction in Mozambique than in Vietnam. Investing in these areas can significantly enhance the effectiveness of Mozambican growth to reduce poverty.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder is Associated With Reduced Lung Function in the Vietnam Experience Study

There is no clear consensus in the few studies to have explored the relationship between major mental health disorders and lung function. The present study examined the cross-sectional associations of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and major depressive disorder (MDD) with lung function in a large study of male US veterans. Participants (N = 4256) were drawn from the Vietnam Experience Study. From military files, telephone interviews, and a medical examination, anthropometric, sociodemographic, and health data were collected. One-year prevalence of GAD and MDD was determined using DSM-III criteria. Forced expiratory volume in 1 second was measured by spirometry. In models that adjusted for age and height, both GAD (p < .001) and MDD (p = .004) were associated with lower forced expiratory volume in 1 second. In models additionally adjusting for weight, place of service, ethnicity, marriage, smoking, alcohol consumption, income, education, and major illness, GAD was still associated with poorer lung function (p = .01), whereas MDD was not (p = .18). Depression has very much been the focus of studies on mental health and physical health status. The current findings suggest that future research should perhaps pay equal attention to GAD.

The Role of Intelligence in Fighting Insurgencies

This paper seeks to explain why powerful states have struggled to defeat insurgencies after World War II despite their superiority in wealth and military power. I examine the U.S experience in Iraq and Vietnam, building on the argument that the asymmetry of information favoring insurgencies can partly explain their success. I argue that powerful states’ efforts to understand the insurgency may, ironically, increase their enemies’ understanding of them, thereby undermining their efforts. As they seek to understand the enemy, they become more visible, thus increasing their vulnerability. As they deploy technology to gather information, seek indigenous allies, or increase patrols, they expose more of their organizations’ routines and practices, providing insurgents a valuable information advantage. Powerful militaries require clear, routine procedures to function, have complex logistics “tails,” and a broad array of units requiring coordination. The technology they deploy sends identifiable signals that make them more predictable. Thus, powerful states’ costly and well-coordinated efforts to succeed in fighting insurgencies can undermine their ability to do so.

Child injury prevention in Vietnam: achievements and challenges

As with other South Asian countries, injury is becoming a leading cause of death and morbidity among children in Vietnam. In response to the increasing burden of child injury, government and non-government agencies in Vietnam have combined efforts during the last decade to develop and implement various child injury prevention strategies and programmes. This article provides, through a review of relevant documents and interviews with major stakeholders, an overview of these efforts and highlights major challenges to child injury prevention in the country. The findings point to notable achievements in terms of increasing awareness of injury facing children at all levels in the community and developing a sound injury prevention policy framework in a relatively short period of time. However, much needs to be done to implement necessary environmental and legislative changes, strengthen child injury surveillance and injury prevention research; and to improve access to health services. The insight into the experience of Vietnam could benefit other low- and middle-income countries with a high burden of child injury.

SP3-22 Child injury prevention in Vietnam: achievements and challenges

IntroductionAs with other South Asian countries, injury is becoming a leading cause of death and morbidity among children in Vietnam. In response, government and non-government agencies in Vietnam have combined...

Agent Orange Exposure and Attributed Health Effects in Vietnam Veterans

Serum dioxin studies of Vietnam (VN) veterans, military historical records of tactical herbicide use in Vietnam, and the compelling evidence of the photodegradation of 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) and other aspects of environmental fate and low bioavailability of TCDD are consistent with few, if any, ground troop veterans being exposed to Agent Orange. That conclusion, however, is contrary to the presumption by the Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) that military service in Vietnam anytime from January 9, 1962 to May 7, 1975 is a proxy for exposure to Agent Orange. The DVA assumption is inconsistent with the scientific principles governing determinations of disease causation. The DVA has nonetheless awarded Agent Orange-related benefits and compensation to an increasing number of VN veterans based on the presumption of exposure and the published findings of the Institute of Medicine that there is sufficient evidence of a "statistical association" (a less stringent standard than "causal relationship") between exposure to tactical herbicides or TCDD and 15 different human diseases. A fairer and more valid approach for VN veterans would have been to enact a program of "Vietnam experience" benefits for those seriously ill, rather than benefits based on the dubious premise of injuries caused by Agent Orange.

Low cognitive ability in early adulthood is associated with reduced lung function in middle age: the Vietnam Experience Study

ObjectiveReduced lung function has been linked to poorer cognitive ability later in life. In the present study, the authors examined the converse: whether there was a prospective association between cognitive...

Intelligence in early adulthood and subclinical atherosclerosis in middle-aged men: the Vietnam Experience Study

BackgroundPeople with higher intelligence in early life have a lower subsequent risk of coronary heart disease events, but the explanation for these observations is unclear.AimsTo examine whether intelligence in early...

Dogtag Summer (review)

Reviewed by: Dogtag Summer Deborah Stevenson, Editor Partridge, Elizabeth. Dogtag Summer. Bloomsbury, 2011. [240p]. ISBN 978-1-59990-183-1 $16.99 Reviewed from galleys Ad Gr. 6–9. It’s the summer of 1980, and Tracy, who has just finished seventh grade, is initially expecting a regular vacation where she goofs around with her best friend, Stargazer. One small moment, however, brings Tracy sharp and painful memories of her life in Vietnam before she left to be adopted in America five years ago, and she begins to question her family’s silence about her past. It’s not just her past that’s a mystery, though; her adoptive father is a Vietnam vet who’s clearly still troubled by his experience there, and because he shuts Tracy down whenever she asks questions, she decides to investigate his Vietnam experience as well—and finds a startling connection to hers. Tracy’s backstory is a dramatic one, and her residual anxiety is understandable; the flashbacks to her life in Vietnam give vivid glimpses of a war-gripped country where she, as a half-American child, put her family at risk just by existing. That story’s sufficiently interesting that it’s frustrating when the book focuses so much on her father’s experience instead and often seems more concerned with his adjustment than hers. Additionally, the secret about her father’s (and her) past requires several ostensibly sympathetic people to have behaved unsympathetically and improbably and undercuts the realism with soap-operatic leaps of logic. The subject is still a poignant one, though, and those who wanted more after Burg’s All the Broken Pieces(BCCB 5/09) may wish to pursue the topic here. An appendix offers a Q&A about the Vietnam War. Copyright © 2011 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Insights on conducting research in low-resource settings: examples from Vietnam and Uganda

ABSTRACTThis commentary describes key observations and strategies, based on the author's experiences in Vietnam and Uganda, for tailoring evidence-based behavioral medicine research in low-resource settings.

Cortisol, dehydroepiandrosterone sulphate, their ratio and hypertension: evidence of associations in male veterans from the Vietnam Experience Study

Although clinical observations implicate cortisol in hypertension, the epidemiological evidence is less compelling. Little is known about the relationship between dehydroepiandrosterone sulphate (DHEAS) and hypertension, and nothing about the association with the cortisol:DHEAS ratio. The present analyses of data obtained from Vietnam-era US veterans examined the associations between cortisol, DHEAS, their ratio and hypertension. Participants were 4180 male veterans. From military files, telephone interviews and a medical examination, sociodemographic and health data were collected. At medical examination, a fasted morning blood sample was collected to assay serum cortisol and DHEAS, blood pressure measured and body mass index (BMI) determined. Hypertension was defined by having one of the following: a reported physician diagnosis, taking antihypertensive medication, an average systolic blood pressure ≥ 140 mm Hg and an average diastolic blood pressure ≥ 90 mm Hg. Cortisol and the cortisol:DHEAS ratio were positively associated with hypertension (P < 0.001), whereas DHEAS was negatively associated; the latter relationship was attenuated to non-significance (P = 0.06) in models that adjusted for age, sociodemographics, place of service, health behaviours and BMI. The present analyses provide confirmation of a positive association between cortisol and the cortisol:DHEAS ratio and population hypertension.

Psychic Experience, Truth, and Visuality in Post-war Vietnam

During the Vietnam War, unprecedented numbers of dead soldiers were buried in unmarked graves and remain missing today. Starting in the mid-1990s, the services of psychics came into high demand, prompting the establishment of a state-approved Center for Research into Human Capabilities that continues to offer grave-finding assistance for the general public. This article discusses the cases of two well-known female psychics. As the case studies demonstrate, such research programs have established a niche for psychics on the perimeters of the official discursive nexus of truth, science, and visuality. They also highlight the variability of social and semantic proc esses by which different psychics are positioned in relation to recognized distinctions between legitimate and illegitimate knowledge practices and truth claims.

The Impact of Vietnam on U.S. Strategy in the First Gulf War

This article examines the U.S. experience in Vietnam and its effect on the perceived necessity to use overwhelming force during the first Persian Gulf War. America's experience in Vietnam shaped future strategic assumptions that were incorporated into the Powell Doctrine. This article examines how the perceived need for entering a military conflict with overwhelming force interacts with other elements and how this helps create an overall logic that overrides the individual elements of the doctrine.

Major depressive disorder, generalised anxiety disorder, and their comorbidity: Associations with cortisol in the Vietnam Experience Study

The aim of these analyses was to examine the association of cortisol, dehydroepiandrosterone sulphate (DHEAS), and the cortisol:DHEAS ratio with the diagnoses of major depressive disorder (MDD), generalised anxiety disorder (GAD), and their comorbidity. This was a cross-sectional study. Participants were 4256 Vietnam era US army veterans. From military service files, telephone interviews, and a medical examination, occupational, socio-demographic, and health data were collected. One-year prevalence of MDD and GAD was determined through a diagnostic interview schedule based on the DSM-IV criteria. Contemporary morning fasted cortisol and DHEAS concentrations were determined. Analyses of covariance were run, first with adjustment for age and then additionally adjusting for a range of candidate confounders. In fully adjusted analyses, there was evidence of lower basal cortisol levels in individuals with MDD and co-morbid MDD and GAD than those with GAD alone or no diagnosis. This suggests that MDD and its comorbidity can also be characterised by low as well as high cortisol levels. A profitable line of future research might be to examine cortisol and DHEAS levels in more representative samples including older participants and women with and without MDD, GAD, and other psychiatric diagnoses.

Warfare vascular injuries

Vascular injuries as a part of combat injuries have been recorded since times immemorial. Responsible for death due to exsanguination, the management of vascular injuries was ligation or amputation till the landmark Vietnam experience. The present day management has evolved with advances in modern technology and may start at the battlefield with the application of a tourniquet with the definitive treatment continuing beyond the combat operation theatres. A basic understanding of both blunt and penetrating vascular injuries will help minimize mortality and morbidity.

Cognitive ability in early adulthood is associated with systemic inflammation in middle age: The Vietnam experience study

We examined the prospective association between cognitive ability in early adulthood and erythrocyte sedimentation rate, a marker of inflammation, in middle age. Participants were 4256 male Vietnam era US veterans. Data on cognitive ability, assessed by the Army General Technical Test, ethnicity, and place of service were extracted from enlistment files. Smoking behaviour, alcohol consumption, basic socio-demographics, and whether participants suffered from a physician diagnosed chronic disease were determined by telephone interview in middle-age in 1985. Erythrocyte sedimentation rate, cholesterol, blood pressure, height, and weight were measured at a 3-day medical examination in 1986. In linear regression models that adjusted for age and then additionally for circumstantial, socio-demographic, lifestyle, and health factors, poor cognitive ability in early adulthood was associated with greater erythrocyte sedimentation rate in middle age, β = −.09. Thus, it would appear that not only does systemic inflammation influence cognition, but also that poor cognitive ability earlier in life is associated with inflammation in middle-age.

Lymphocyte sub-population cell counts are associated with the metabolic syndrome and its components in the Vietnam Experience Study

Objective The metabolic syndrome (MetS) increases the risk of cardiovascular disease morbidity and mortality. MetS is also associated with increases in the number of circulating white blood cells. Lymphocyte sub-population counts have also been implicated in cardiovascular disease; this analysis will examine whether or not they are associated with MetS. Methods Participants were 4255 Vietnam-era US veterans. From military service files, telephone interviews, and a medical examination, occupational, socio-demographic, and health data were collected. MetS was ascertained from: body mass index; fasting blood glucose or a diabetes medication; blood pressure or a diagnosis of hypertension; HDL cholesterol; and triglyceride levels. Circulating T, T4, T8 and B lymphocytes cell numbers were determined by flow cytometry. Results In fully adjusted logistic regression analyses, high lymphocyte sub-population counts were associated with an increased risk of MetS: T cells, OR = 2.68, 95%CI 1.99–3.61, p < .001; T4 cells, OR = 2.37, 95%CI 1.78–3.15, p < .001; T8 cells, OR = 1.79, 95%CI 1.43–2.24, p < .001; B cells, OR = 1.82, 95%CI 1.51–2.19, p < .001. High lymphocyte sub-population numbers were also associated with an increased likelihood of possessing each of the MetS components, as well as the number of components possessed. Conclusions These results extend previous research which has largely been confined to total white blood cell or overall lymphocyte counts. If the present associations arise in prospective research, it is possible that simple lymphocyte cell counts could provide an additional prognostic indicator of risk for MetS.

The History, Use, Disposition and Environmental Fate of Agent Orange By Alvin L. Young , New York:Springer, 2009. 339 pp. ISBN: 978-0-387-87485-2, $99

The History, Use, Disposition and Environmental Fate of Agent Orange <i>By Alvin L. Young</i> , New York:Springer, 2009. 339 pp. ISBN: 978-0-387-87485-2, $99

Marketing Complementary Foods and Supplements in Burkina Faso, Madagascar, and Vietnam: Lessons Learned from the Nutridev Program

Sustainable approaches to improving infant and young child feeding are needed. The Nutridev program worked in Vietnam, Madagascar, and Burkina Faso to test different strategies to improve complementary feeding using fortified products sold to families. To review the experiences of programs producing and marketing fortified complementary foods and to report on the feasibility of local production and marketing of fortified complementary foods to increase usage of high-quality foods among children of low-income families in a self-sustaining manner. Project documents, surveys of mothers, and production and sales reports were reviewed. Nutridev experience in Vietnam, Madagascar, and Burkina Faso demonstrates that it is possible to produce affordable, high-quality complementary foods and supplements locally in developing countries. Strategies to make products readily available to the targeted population and to convince this population to consume them yielded mixed results, varying greatly based on the strategy utilized and the context in which it was implemented. In several contexts, the optimal approach appears to be strengthening the existing food distribution network to sell complementary foods and supplements, with the implementation of a temporary promotion and nutrition education network in partnership with local authorities (e.g., health services) to increase awareness among families about the fortified complementary food product and optimal feeding practices. In urban areas, where the density of the population is high, design and implementation of specific networks very close to consumers seems to be a good way to combine economic sustainability and good consumption levels.