Health & Living

Malnutrition is a growing problem among our children, and along with poverty, it creates a vicious cycle that can’t be fixed by simply telling families to eat better. Especially for families living in rural areas or in poverty, addressing malnutrition is more than just knowing what to do but having an environment that helps make those food choices easier. To unpack this, we speak to Ang Zheng Feng, Health & Nutrition Officer at World Vision Malaysia. In this interview, Zheng Feng shares more about World Vision Malaysia’s community development programmes as well as their nutrition-through-sports programmes. 

Image Credit: World Vision Malaysia

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As breast cancer treatment becomes more advanced, more women today will be able to see a horizon much further in the distance. There is hope for women to pick up the threads of their life they had put on hold to undergo treatment. But women shouldn’t have to navigate the post-treatment phase of their lives alone. We get the perspectives of the Breast Cancer Welfare Association and National Cancer Society Malaysia on the kind of structural support women need beyond diagnosis and treatment. 

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Breast cancer is typically diagnosed among women after the age of 50, yet we seem to be hearing about more women who are being diagnosed with breast cancer at a younger age. In conjunction with Breast Cancer Awareness Month, more commonly known as Pink October, we speak to clinical oncologist Dr Nisha Shariff and genetic counsellor Yoon Sook Yee to unpack the risks that younger women face and how genetic testing could help them understand those risks.

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We’ve all been stressed before, and for some of us, it’s just part and parcel of our daily lives. So how do you know when you’re coping well or barely treading water? Licensed and registered counsellor Rozy Khalid joins us to help us unpack when stress is good or bad, as well as offer tips on how we can learn to cope with stress and when you might need to set clear boundaries.

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The last year has seen the Ministry of Health attempting to implement long-term systemic reforms, while addressing acute crises, all amid a war in the Middle East. Together with Dr Tharani Loganathan, Associate Professor of Global Health, from Universiti Malaya, we look at how the upcoming Budget 2027 could be an opportunity to continue healthcare reforms, and how we need to look beyond funding alone. 

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The Bidayuh in Sarawak have among the highest rates of nasopharyngeal cancer (NPC) in the world. It is also the most common cancer among Sarawakian men. What are the factors that increase the risk of NPC among the Bidayuh community, and what are the systemic barriers to addressing early diagnosis and comprehensive care of NPC? We explore with Azrul Mohd Khalib, CEO of the Galen Centre for Health & Social Policy, and Professor Datu Dr Andrew Kiyu, Professor of Public Health from the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, University Malaysia Sarawak.

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Malaysia has one of the lowest organ donation and transplantation rates in the world, despite being an early pioneer of organ donation in the 1970s. Where did we go wrong, and how can we catch up with countries like Spain, whose organ donation rate is 50 times higher than ours? Kidney transplant survivor Manvir Victor and transplant nephrologist Dr Mohamad Zaimi Abdul Wahab moot the idea of a National Transplant Institute to centralise services, training, data collection and allocation of organs. Listen to the first part here.

Beyond The Diagnosis is a series that goes beyond a medical diagnosis to explore people’s personal experiences, their challenges, as well as the impact of their health condition on their loved ones.

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Last month, American president Donald Trump signed an order to limit childhood vaccines and to split the mumps, measles and rubella shots for children in America. While this is just a guidance, and not a mandate, having such recommendations coming from the U.S. president can have a significant influence, not just in the U.S. itself but the rest of the world as well as many countries have traditionally looked to the U.S. for guidance. On top of that, Trump has also called for childhood vaccinations to be reduced across the board. Consultant urologist Dr George Lee is joined by paediatric infectious diseases consultant Dr Sangeetha Siniah to discuss if childhood vaccinations have been a victim of their own success and how parents can navigate misinformation about childhood vaccines. 

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The newly-passed Social Work Profession Bill aims to introduce stricter standards for the field of social work, and regulate the activities of social workers in Malaysia. What does this mean for the thousands of children who depend on social workers, especially those living in vulnerable situations? We speak to Dr Rajini Sarvananthan, Consultant Developmental Paediatrician, and Amy Bala from the Malaysian Association of Social Workers, to discuss this long-awaited bill and what it means for children nationwide. 

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A recent study published in The Lancet Public Health found that in 2023 alone an estimated 2.7 billion people globally were exposed to secondhand smoke, including 767 million children under 15. After decades of anti-smoking campaigns and awareness-building about the dangers of secondhand smoke, why are billions of people still breathing in contaminated air? In conjunction with World Lung Day on the 25th of September, we’re joined by Prof Dr Anna Marie Nathan, consultant paediatric pulmonologist from Universiti Malaya Medical Centre to clear the air about the short- and long-term health consequences of secondhand smoke, why children are especially vulnerable to secondhand smoke in the home, as well as what we can do to help smokers quit to create a smoke-free environment for all. 

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