Say Sok
Say Sok, PhD was educated in Cambodia, Japan and Australia in education and political science. He graduated with BEd in English from English Department (Institute of Foreign Languages) of Royal University of Phnom Penh (RUPP) in 2002, and from Kobe University with a Master's Degree in Political Science in 2005. He earned a PhD in Political Science, majoring in political economy of natural resources governance, from Deakin University Australia in 2012.
He works as an independent consultant and researcher and is currently working for Cambodia Communication Institute on media and communication and for KHANA Center for Population Health Research as Senior Research Advisor on population health. At DMC/CCI, he has served as Editor of Cambodian Communication Review, the first Cambodian journal on media and communication, since 2013. He had worked at DMC as a lecturer and project advisor between 2013 and 2017. He served as the national technical advisor on higher education governance and management to the Higher Education Quality and Capacity Improvement Project (HEQCIP), co-funded by the government and the World Bank from 2014 to 2017, when he produced a few policy reports and contributed significantly to production of some of key higher education policies and plans. He was a founding member and lecturer and is now a fellow of Department of International Studies/RUPP. He was a non-residential senior research fellow at Center for Khmer Studies in 2015-16, when he conducted research into community building in rural Cambodia. Previously, he was deputy director at CAMProbe, a local consultancy firm, in 2007-08 and a lecturer at Department of English/RUPP, from 2002 to 2009.
Dr. Sok has published research reports, articles and book chapters on media and communication, political economy of resource governance, the state, state-society relations, higher education, and population health (forthcoming). His works have featured in, inter alia, CCR, JSEAS, JAS, JICE, and BMC Public Health. He has presented academic and policy papers at numerous local and international conferences and workshops.
He works as an independent consultant and researcher and is currently working for Cambodia Communication Institute on media and communication and for KHANA Center for Population Health Research as Senior Research Advisor on population health. At DMC/CCI, he has served as Editor of Cambodian Communication Review, the first Cambodian journal on media and communication, since 2013. He had worked at DMC as a lecturer and project advisor between 2013 and 2017. He served as the national technical advisor on higher education governance and management to the Higher Education Quality and Capacity Improvement Project (HEQCIP), co-funded by the government and the World Bank from 2014 to 2017, when he produced a few policy reports and contributed significantly to production of some of key higher education policies and plans. He was a founding member and lecturer and is now a fellow of Department of International Studies/RUPP. He was a non-residential senior research fellow at Center for Khmer Studies in 2015-16, when he conducted research into community building in rural Cambodia. Previously, he was deputy director at CAMProbe, a local consultancy firm, in 2007-08 and a lecturer at Department of English/RUPP, from 2002 to 2009.
Dr. Sok has published research reports, articles and book chapters on media and communication, political economy of resource governance, the state, state-society relations, higher education, and population health (forthcoming). His works have featured in, inter alia, CCR, JSEAS, JAS, JICE, and BMC Public Health. He has presented academic and policy papers at numerous local and international conferences and workshops.
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The three research articles cover the use of positive preventative messages in local newspapers, communication strategies of nonprofit organizations, and how local NGOs promote freedom of expression. The three commentaries focus on the changing media landscape in Cambodia, youths and social media for political participation, and mass information dissemination for safe cross-border migration.
These works have a common purpose of, rather than providing solutions to the issues under study or discussion, raising awareness and promoting academic discussions and debates – at the empirical, conceptual and theoretical levels. This is to ensure and enhance a space of scholarly engagement and a chance for sharing and debating insights and knowledge amongst scholars, experts and professionals in and on Cambodia.
with illustrations from the fisheries and inundated forest sub-sectors. These two
sub-sectors are used as an illustration due to their socio-economic and economic
values and the limited state capacity to manage them. Based on primary and
secondary documents and field interviews in Phnom Penh and two provinces
around the Tonle Sap Lake with ninety-four key stakeholders, namely, fisheries
officials, NGO officers, researchers, local authorities, community fisheries
committees, lot concessionaires and operators and common fishers, it investigates
the relations between the fragmentation of social control; limited state autonomy;
limited Weberian state structure; weak civil society and state-society relations; a
quest for internal political legitimacy, and impacts from donors’ assistance on
Cambodian state capacity. Besides proving that the state capacity (penetration,
regulation, extraction, appropriation, policy and legislation, midwifery and
husbandry) in general and that of the sub-sectors in particular has been limited,
albeit variable and improving, this research finds that the six factors above have an
overall negative impact on Cambodian state capacity. On the theoretical front, this
study locates the limited state capacity within the context of the post-communist
electoral legitimacy where a dominant ruling party dominates and where there are
less functional but politicized state apparatus and poor interactions amongst and
within them, strong ego-centered social forces, less capable civil society and poorly
engaging state-society relations, and limited meaningful engagement between
donors and between donors and Cambodian state agencies.
Methods A cross-sectional survey was conducted in 2015 among students randomly selected from the Royal University of Phnom Penh and University of Battambang. Health-related behaviors in different domains were collected using a structured questionnaire. Chi-square test, Fisher’s exact test, or independent Student’s t-test was used as appropriate to describe and compare the variables among male and female students.
Results This study included 1359 students, of whom 50.8% were male, and the mean age was 21.3 years (SD= 2.3). Of the total, 79.5% reported not having any vigorous-intensity activities, 25.9% not having moderate-intensity activities, and 33.5% not having walked continuously for 10 minutes during the past seven days. The prevalence of substance use was low with 38.3% currently drinking alcohol, 1.1% smoking tobacco, and 0.4% using an illicit drug during the past 12 months. About one in ten (10.6%) reported having sexual intercourse, with a mean number of partners of 2.1 (SD= 2.4) during the past 12 months, and 42.4% not using a condom in the last intercourse. Only 7.1% reported having been diagnosed with a sexually transmitted infection in the past 12 months; of whom, 60% sought for treatment. About one-third (33.6%) reported eating fast food once or twice, and 5.3% having it three times or more over the last week. More than half (55.6%) had one to two servings of fruits and vegetables daily, and 9.9% did not eat any fruits and vegetables over the last week.
Conclusions We found that the prevalence of sexual risk behaviors and substance use was plausibly low among university students in this study. However, the rates of inactive lifestyle and unhealthy food consumption were concerning. Public policy and universities should promote healthy behaviors among the students. The interventions may take advantage of and expend upon the good health behaviors and consider gender differences.
Methods A cross-sectional survey was conducted in 2015 among students randomly selected from the Royal University of Phnom Penh and University of Battambang. Health-related behaviors in different domains were collected using a structured questionnaire. Chi-square test, Fisher’s exact test, or independent Student’s t-test was used as appropriate to describe and compare the variables among male and female students.
Results This study included 1359 students, of whom 50.8% were male, and the mean age was 21.3 years (SD= 2.3). Of the total, 79.5% reported not having any vigorous-intensity activities, 25.9% not having moderate-intensity activities, and 33.5% not having walked continuously for 10 minutes during the past seven days. The prevalence of substance use was low with 38.3% currently drinking alcohol, 1.1% smoking tobacco, and 0.4% using an illicit drug during the past 12 months. About one in ten (10.6%) reported having sexual intercourse, with a mean number of partners of 2.1 (SD= 2.4) during the past 12 months, and 42.4% not using a condom in the last intercourse. Only 7.1% reported having been diagnosed with a sexually transmitted infection in the past 12 months; of whom, 60% sought for treatment. About one-third (33.6%) reported eating fast food once or twice, and 5.3% having it three times or more over the last week. More than half (55.6%) had one to two servings of fruits and vegetables daily, and 9.9% did not eat any fruits and vegetables over the last week.