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Hong-Kong Nguyen

Bio: Hong-Kong Nguyen is an academic researcher. The author has contributed to research in topics: Health care & Buddhism. The author has an hindex of 2, co-authored 2 publications receiving 67 citations.

Papers
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is shown that uninsured, married and employed individuals are less sensitive to cost than their counterparts because they value the information in reducing future health uncertainty, and the empirical results challenge the objections to periodic health screening by highlighting its utility.
Abstract: Decision-making regarding healthcare expenditure hinges heavily on an individual's health status and the certainty about the future. This study uses data on propensity of general health exam (GHE) spending to show that despite the debate on the necessity of GHE, its objective is clear—to obtain more information and certainty about one’s health so as to minimise future risks. Most studies on this topic, however, focus only on factors associated with GHE uptake and overlook the shifts in behaviours and attitudes regarding different levels of cost. To fill the gap, this study analyses a dataset of 2068 subjects collected from Hanoi (Vietnam) and its vicinities using the baseline-category logit method. We evaluate the sensitivity of Vietnamese healthcare consumers against two groups of factors (demographic and socioeconomic-cognitive) regarding payment for periodic GHE, which is not covered by insurance. Our study shows that uninsured, married and employed individuals are less sensitive to cost than their counterparts because they value the information in reducing future health uncertainty. The empirical results challenge the objections to periodic health screening by highlighting its utility. The relevance of behavioural economics is further highlighted through a look at the bounded rationality of healthcare consumers and private insurance companies in using and providing the service, respectively.

71 citations

Posted Content
TL;DR: This paper employed the Bayesian network modeling approach and the Markov chain Monte Carlo technique to learn about the role of lies and violence in teachings of major religions, using a unique dataset extracted from long-standing Vietnamese folktales.
Abstract: This research employs the Bayesian network modeling approach, and the Markov chain Monte Carlo technique, to learn about the role of lies and violence in teachings of major religions, using a unique dataset extracted from long-standing Vietnamese folktales. The results indicate that, although lying and violent acts augur negative consequences for those who commit them, their associations with core religious values diverge in the final outcome for the folktale characters. Lying that serves a religious mission of either Confucianism or Taoism (but not Buddhism) brings a positive outcome to a character (\b{eta}T_and_Lie_O= 2.23; \b{eta}C_and_Lie_O= 1.47; \b{eta}T_and_Lie_O= 2.23). A violent act committed to serving Buddhist missions results in a happy ending for the committer (\b{eta}B_and_Viol_O= 2.55). What is highlighted here is a glaring double standard in the interpretation and practice of the three teachings: the very virtuous outcomes being preached, whether that be compassion and meditation in Buddhism, societal order in Confucianism, or natural harmony in Taoism, appear to accommodate two universal vices-violence in Buddhism and lying in the latter two. These findings contribute to a host of studies aimed at making sense of contradictory human behaviors, adding the role of religious teachings in addition to cognition in belief maintenance and motivated reasoning in discounting counterargument.

16 citations


Cited by
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A self-made web crawl engine was used to scan and collect official media news related to COVID-19 between the beginning of January and April 4, yielding a comprehensive dataset of 14,952 news items.
Abstract: Having geographical proximity and a high volume of trade with China, the first country to record an outbreak of the new Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), Vietnam was expected to have a high risk of transmission. However, as of 4 April 2020, in comparison to attempts to containing the disease around the world, responses from Vietnam are seen as prompt and effective in protecting the interests of its citizens, with 239 confirmed cases and no fatalities. This study analyzes the situation in terms of Vietnam’s policy response, social media and science journalism. A self-made web crawl engine was used to scan and collect official media news related to COVID-19 between the beginning of January and April 4, yielding a comprehensive dataset of 14,952 news items. The findings shed light on how Vietnam—despite being under-resourced—has demonstrated political readiness to combat the emerging pandemic since the earliest days. Timely communication on any developments of the outbreak from the government and the media, combined with up-to-date research on the new virus by the Vietnamese science community, have altogether provided reliable sources of information. By emphasizing the need for immediate and genuine cooperation between government, civil society and private individuals, the case study offers valuable lessons for other nations concerning not only the concurrent fight against the COVID-19 pandemic but also the overall responses to a public health crisis.

176 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors proposed three models of additivity for religious faiths: no additivity, simple additivity and complex additivity to evaluate how the values and norms of the aforementioned three religions coexist, interact, and influence Vietnamese society.
Abstract: Computational folkloristics, which is rooted in the movement to make folklore studies more scientific, has transformed the way researchers in humanities detect patterns of cultural transmission in large folklore collections. This interdisciplinary study contributes to the literature through its application of Bayesian statistics in analyzing Vietnamese folklore. By breaking down 307 stories in popular Vietnamese folktales and major story collections and categorizing their core messages under the values or anti-values of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism, the study shows how the Bayesian method helps discover an underlying behavioural phenomenon called “cultural additivity.” The term, which is inspired by the principle of additivity in probability, adds to the voluminous works on syncretism, creolization and hybridity in its technical dimension. Here, to evaluate how the values and norms of the aforementioned three religions (“tam giao” 三教) co-exist, interact, and influence Vietnamese society, the study proposes three models of additivity for religious faiths: (a) no additivity, (b) simple additivity, and (c) complex additivity. The empirical results confirm the existence of “cultural additivity” : not only is there an isolation of Buddhism in the folktales, there is also a higher possibility of interaction or addition of Confucian and Taoist values even when these two religions hold different value systems (β{VT.VC} = 0.86). The arbitrary blend of the three religions is an example of the observed phenomenon of Vietnamese people selecting and adding ideas, beliefs, or artefacts—which may sometimes appear contradictory to principles of their existing beliefs—to their culture. The behavioural pattern is omnipresent in the sense that it can also be seen in Vietnamese arts, architecture, or adoption of new ideas and religions, among others. The “cultural additivity” concept, backed by robust statistical analysis, is an attempt to fill in the cultural core pointed out by syncretism and account for the rising complexity of modern societies.

122 citations

Posted Content
TL;DR: A self-made web crawl engine was used to scan and collect official media news related to COVID-19 between the beginning of January and April 4, yielding a comprehensive dataset of 14,952 news items as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Having geographical proximity and a high volume of trade with China, the first country to record an outbreak of the new Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), Vietnam was expected to have a high risk of transmission. However, as of 4 April 2020, in comparison to attempts to containing the disease around the world, responses from Vietnam are seen as prompt and effective in protecting the interests of its citizens, with 239 confirmed cases and no fatalities. This study analyzes the situation in terms of Vietnam’s policy response, social media and science journalism. A self-made web crawl engine was used to scan and collect official media news related to COVID-19 between the beginning of January and April 4, yielding a comprehensive dataset of 14,952 news items. The findings shed light on how Vietnam—despite being under-resourced—has demonstrated political readiness to combat the emerging pandemic since the earliest days. Timely communication on any developments of the outbreak from the government and the media, combined with up-to-date research on the new virus by the Vietnamese science community, have altogether provided reliable sources of information. By emphasizing the need for immediate and genuine cooperation between government, civil society and private individuals, the case study offers valuable lessons for other nations concerning not only the concurrent fight against the COVID-19 pandemic but also the overall responses to a public health crisis.

67 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A framework to evaluate the artificial intelligence (AI) readiness for the healthcare sector in developing countries is presented: a combination of adequate technical or technological expertise, financial sustainability, and socio-political commitment embedded in a healthy psycho-cultural context could bring about the smooth transitioning toward an AI-powered healthcare sector.
Abstract: This review paper presents a framework to evaluate the artificial intelligence (AI) readiness for the healthcare sector in developing countries: a combination of adequate technical or technological expertise, financial sustainability, and socio-political commitment embedded in a healthy psycho-cultural context could bring about the smooth transitioning toward an AI-powered healthcare sector. Taking the Vietnamese healthcare sector as a case study, this paper attempts to clarify the negative and positive influencers. With only about 1500 publications about AI from 1998 to 2017 according to the latest Elsevier AI report, Vietnamese physicians are still capable of applying the state-of-the-art AI techniques in their research. However, a deeper look at the funding sources suggests a lack of socio-political commitment, hence the financial sustainability, to advance the field. The AI readiness in Vietnam’s healthcare also suffers from the unprepared information infrastructure—using text mining for the official annual reports from 2012 to 2016 of the Ministry of Health, the paper found that the frequency of the word “database” actually decreases from 2012 to 2016, and the word has a high probability to accompany words such as “lacking”, “standardizing”, “inefficient”, and “inaccurate.” Finally, manifestations of psycho-cultural elements such as the public’s mistaken views on AI or the non-transparent, inflexible and redundant of Vietnamese organizational structures can impede the transition to an AI-powered healthcare sector.

54 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This study offers a conceptualization of actors’ value co-creation prompted by AI-driven nudged choices, in terms of re-institutionalizing processes that affect agency and practices, based on the service-dominant logic and nudge theory.

46 citations