It is necessary to strengthen the use of research-based evidence todevelop health policies and programmes, especially for sexual andreproductive health.

Experts agreed on this at the secondnational conference on Sexual and Reproductive Health held in Hanoi onNovember 11 by the Ministry of Health, the Hanoi School of Public Healthand the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in Vietnam.

DeputyMinister of Health Nguyen Viet Tien said that strengthening scientificresearch would help maintain the fertility rate at replacement level andreduce the imbalanced sex ratio.

He also said this type ofresearch could help cut maternal, child and abortion death rates andimprove sexual and reproductive health care services for young people.

LuuThi Hong, Director of the health ministry's Department of Mother-ChildHealth, said there were disparities in death and sickness rates betweenvarious regions and population groups, especially among ethnic groups.

Inequalitiesand disparities in access to quality reproductive health care wereobserved among women in various regions in Vietnam, she said.

She added that Vietnam also did not have a reliable sexual and reproductive health database on adolescents and young people.

This led to limitations in the development of policies on sexual reproductive health.

"Research-basedevidence in different regions and among different vulnerable groupswould help provide enough information to improve the sexual andreproductive health of young people," said Hong.

Arthur Erken,UNFPA representative in Vietnam said that Vietnam was a largely ruralcountry with more than 90 million inhabitants from 54 different ethnicgroups. "One-size-fits-all policies do not work and we should make surethat the different needs of all individuals related to sexualreproductive health should be taken into account," he said.-VNA