The Asian Health Literacy Association (AHLA)
The Asian Health Literacy Association (AHLA), established and registered in Geneva, Switzerland, in 2013, is an independent multinational non-governmental organization dedicated to advancing and promoting best practices and research in health literacy across Asia. Within AHLA, practitioners, researchers, and policymakers collaborate to establish robust initiatives aimed at promoting health literacy, with the ultimate objective of mitigating health disparities and elevating healthcare quality. Through public education and research initiatives, we collectively cultivate best practices in health literacy and actively support the formulation of relevant policies.
AHLA fosters dialogue at various levels, spanning communities, groups, and nations. This involves encouraging discussions among patients, clinicians, health administrators, service providers, and policymakers regarding the crucial role of health literacy in healthcare systems. The collaborative efforts seek to address challenges and find solutions in healthcare practices. AHLA also supports multinational research endeavors and country-specific investigations, recognizing the significance of sharing experiences and research findings in the realm of health literacy. Advocating for collaborative efforts in health literacy is a key tenet among all stakeholders in Asian countries.
The AHLA mission is to promote health literacy and to aid in the development of policies that will achieve better healthcare in Asia. The AHLA major goals:
  1. To understand correlations between health literacy levels and how healthcare services are accessed and used;
    2. To advocate effective policies that can enhance equitable access to and efficiency of healthcare services through improved health literacy; To extend health literacy to improve healthcare systems, disease prevention and health promotion across Asia.
The AHLA has been fully supported by more than 100 academic professional institutions in more than 40 countries in Asia and around the world. The AHLA is a multinational non-governmental organization that seeks to study and conduct research, education and policy implantation in health literacy across Asia. The association encourages dialog among researchers, officials, healthcare organizations as well as experts in health and education, corporations and media that can develop better interventions in health education and services.
The AHLA has been established in Geneva, Switzerland in 2015, and moved to London, UK in 2018. Since then, ten international conferences were well-organized in Taiwan, Vietnam and Malaysia, Thailand. These events have been participated by more than 400 global experts, scientists, and policy makers.
You are welcome to visit the Conference Website for more details via https://www.ahla-asia.org/about/29.htm. If your enquiry is urgent or in need of any further information, please feel free to contact us at: Conference Secretariat (Email: ahla.mailbox@gmail.com)
Thailand Health Literacy Association (THLA)
The Thailand Health Literacy Association (THLA) was created to serve as a flexible, central platform connecting the public, private, academic, and operational sectors at both national and international levels. The foundation for national health literacy initiatives was first set in 2016 following the Thai government's health literacy policy declaration, leading the Department of Health—under the leadership of Dr. Wachira Pengjuntr—to establish the Health Literacy Promotion Division and actively join international networks, including the Asian Health Literacy Association (AHLA). At the core of THLA’s mission is the concept of a "Wisdom Vaccine" designed to empower Thai citizens in the digital age to seek, evaluate, and utilize reliable health information while safeguarding against health misinformation. Recognized in the Royal Gazette in 2018 as a key national health reform priority, this vision led to the official registration of THLA on November 14, 2019. Under the leadership of Dr. Wachira Pengjuntr as President, alongside an executive committee comprising representatives from the Department of Health, the Department of Mental Health, and higher education institutions, THLA works to bridge high-level policy with practical execution.
THLA drives ground-level impact by producing operational guidebooks, educational media, action research and knowledge management, while establishing practical working models such as "Health Literate Communities/Villages" and "Health Literate Organizations". To strengthen professional capacity, the association has supported over 600 healthcare personnel and network members to participate in national and international academic conferences. Externally, THLA co-hosted the 9th AHLA International Conference in Phuket in May 2023 alongside AHLA, Khon Kaen University’s Faculty of Public Health, and the Department of Health. Moving forward, THLA is partnering with AHLA and the School of Lifelong Education at Chiang Mai University to co-host The 12th AHLA International Conference 2026 in Chiang Mai from November 1–3, 2026, focused on the theme "Health Literacy (HL) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)". More information on the conference can be found at https://www.ahla-conference2026.com/, and further details regarding the Thailand Health Literacy Association are available at https://www.facebook.com/Thailandhealthliteracy/.
SCHOOL OF LIFELONG EDUCATION, CHIANGMAI UNIVERSITY
Who We Are
The School of Lifelong Education is Chiang Mai University's primary mechanism for expanding educational opportunities for people of all ages, guided by the concept of "CMU Education for All". A Lifelong Education project piloted on 14 June 2019, and after two years of tangible results, the University Council formally established the school on 26 March 2021. Today, the School operates under Strategic Objective 4, Sustainable Education Platform, of the University's 13th Education Development Plan (2023–2027), with the vision of becoming "a leading ASEAN organization in lifelong education innovation and a key mechanism for improving the quality of life of people of all ages in society". It serves as the University's marketplace for short-course training, provides a life-skills platform for CMU students and staff, and creates educational opportunities for a sustainable society in keeping with Sustainable Development Goal 4.
Reach and Impact
The school’s learner base has grown from around 160,000 in 2022 to a cumulative 585,848 learners from more than 120 countries in 2026. Its platforms are tailored to each stage of life: Skills4Youth for young people; EdSociate for educators, which has developed more than 40,000 teachers nationwide; Advanced@CMU, which lets members of the public study alongside CMU students and accumulate credits in a credit bank for transfer on enrolment within five years; Skills4Life and Data Science & AI for the working population; ADVOCATE for civil servants and community leaders; and MEDEE (Multi-generation Entrepreneur Development Educational Ecosystem) for older adults, which has sparked a learning movement across all 77 provinces with more than 40,000 participants. This impact has been independently verified. The school’s flagship projects for fiscal years 2022-2024 generated a combined Social Return on Investment (SROI) of THB 117.13 million, with MEDEE alone returning 11.88 times its investment.
Innovation and Partnerships
The school acts as the University's sandbox for designing the future of education in both degree and non-degree formats. It applies AI to personalize learning through the LELA and ALAN assistants, runs its own learning management system open and free of charge to school students nationwide, and works with partners including NECTEC on AI, the Thailand Board of Investment on AIoT for agriculture, and Amway Thailand on the CMU Blue Zone / Healthspan Ambassador program. Internationally, the School presented the MEDEE model and ADVOCATE framework at the ASEAN High-Level Forum on Unlocking the Silver Economy in Manila and is adapting them for Vietnam's older-people's associations with VIOBA. The school co-hosted the 12th International Conference of the Asian Health Literacy Association at Chiang Mai University.
Recognition
Between 2022 and 2025, the school received thirteen national and international awards. MEDEE won the Grand Prize at the 2024 Healthy Aging Prize for Asian Innovation (HAPI), Asia's leading recognition for innovation in aging societies, and the NRCT Award from the National Research Council of Thailand. The school itself was named "Best Skill Development Center" by the Asia Education Conclave (2025), won the Thailand Digital Transformation Award 2024, and was recognized by the Thailand Cyber University as an Outstanding Institution for Online Course Development (2025).
Looking Ahead
The school aims to become ASEAN's skills development hub, the Northern Thailand Training Valley, growing its learner base to one million and generating a combined social return of THB 280 million within four years, so that lifelong education becomes a basic right for everyone in Thailand and across ASEAN.