”Home-Temple-School-Public Health Unit” model: A case study of setting a primary public health and natural medicine center in rural community Thailand

The primary health care unit is the important operating function in public health system. To integrate with the community is the basic requirement. In Thailand, based on Buddhist culture, an important local famous development concept is “BOWORN” or “House, Temple and School” that integrate home (villager, community), temple (religious center), and school for operating the developmental project (for example, see recent publication in.^[1]) Based on this basic concept and to support our new naturopathy institute development,^[2],[3] our center try to implement a new additional model by adding the fourth partner, public health unit to the primary three ones. We set the new concept, the primary health unit is planned to set by the collaboration between local organization, villager, university, public health office, and Buddhist temple. In fact, the interrelationship between university and public health is well-known in the form of several public health curricula and faculties, the interrelationship between university and village is well-known in the form of local institute, the interrelationship between public health and village is well-known as primary care unit. The Buddhist temple set in the community and the role of temple and public health is confirmed in many rural communities in Southeast Asia.^[4] This is the new model that can be helpful and early model to support the implementation of the primary care medicine in our setting.

Acknowledgment

The authors would like to thank for the support of the university, public health office, and villagers who support the setting of the center.

Financial support and sponsorship

Nil

Conflicts of interest

There are no conflicts of interest.

Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None

DOI: 10.4103/1755-6783.213150