When Thailand’s Ministry of Public Health joined the Data for Health Initiative in January 2020, one of its objectives was to strengthen its public health bulletin, The Weekly Epidemiological Record (WESR), with support from the CDC Foundation’s Public Health Bulletin Project. Figure 1, prepared by the WESR team, summarizes the accomplishments.

Timely publications – The WESR issues are published at the end of each month and include Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response reports, outbreak reports and guidelines. The September 2025 issue includes articles on COVID-19 and influenza outbreak investigations, an update on the status of syphilis in Thailand, and guidelines for diagnosing patients with viral infections that cause high fever and low platelet syndrome.

New website – The WESR team launched a new website that meets the Principles of Transparency established by professional organizations committed to promoting quality scientific journals. Principles include publishing policies on the peer-review process, fees and access, current and archived issues, and contact information of the editorial team and board members. The new website also includes an online article submission system to streamline the review process.

Updated standard operating procedures (SOPs) – The new SOPs are designed to ensure consistent quality of the WESR. They cover processes for reviewing and approving articles for publication, archiving issues, maintaining the website, and evaluating the processes.

Effective stakeholder collaboration – A welcome outcome of WESR’s new governance structure is effective stakeholder collaboration. The editorial board meetings provide a platform for promoting and discussing the work of multiple divisions and departments within the ministry.

Successful indexing – For the first time in its 55-yearhistory, the WESR team is preparing an application to be indexed on the Thai-Journal Citation Index.

Appropriate training materials – The WESR team successfully translated all public health bulletin training materials from English to Thai and implemented multiple writing workshops. For example, in March, the WESR sponsored a writing workshop to build the capacity of ministry staff to write disease-specific surveillance reports for publication in the WESR.

During the next phase, efforts will continue to enhance the WESR’s quality, reach, and impact as a critical tool for disseminating timely public health information to health professionals and the public.