Health Promotion Board
Feature | HPB

Vision for a Healthy Nation

Health Promotion Board
Committed to advancing the mission of healthy living in Singapore, the Health Promotion Board develops and implements a myriad of health policies and promotion programmes. Low Yu Ting, a Health Promotion Board Scholar, saw the immeasurable value of the organisation’s work and wanted to contribute back to society in this area.

With a vast gamut of vocational opportunities available in this expanding industry, the Health Promotion Board (HPB) offers scholarships to talented candidates who have a strong passion for health promotion. As manager of Health Screening and Management, Yu Ting speaks on how her role drives the agenda of fostering Singaporeans’ wellbeing.

Firstly, what attracted you to the HPB Scholarship?

I was interested in the healthcare industry and wanted to serve the community through the healthcare sector. Thus, I decided that being a HPB Scholar would allow me to achieve my goals of understanding and contributing to public health, considering that the organisation is a reliable and authoritative government body for Singapore’s healthcare.

How are your current roles and responsibilities fulfilling these aspirations?

My current roles and responsibilities have helped me fulfill my aspirations of serving the community and understanding more about the public health sector.

I am currently in charge of increasing awareness of our screening programmes and ensuring that our participants go through a seamless screening experience. One of the most memorable experiences I’ve had so far was during the Healthy Lifestyle Festival roadshows, which are held yearly from September to November. I was in charge of condensing my department’s screening content into bite-sized messages that our target audience would be able to understand. It might appear easy on the surface, however it was actually a challenge trying to simplify medical knowledge into layman terms with the goal that the public learn the importance of screening.

Despite the difficulties faced in simplifying the messages and thinking up ways to attract the public to our screening booth, it was very rewarding when I saw members of the public reading and learning through the visuals and content that I worked on, as well as learning from them, the people we serve, what their health concerns were. This allowed me to connect directly with our target audience and understand their needs further.

Low Yu Ting

Low Yu Ting 
Health Promotion Board
Local Undergraduate Scholarship
Manager, Health Screening and Management

“As HPB is a reliable and authoritative government body for Singapore’s healthcare, being a HPB Scholar allowed me to achieve my goals of understanding and contributing to public health.”

Let’s discuss about the scholarship. How did it groom you to be a well-resourced leader to excel in the roles you mentioned?

Scholars are provided with the opportunity to participate in at least one internship at HPB, prior to our deployment into the company upon graduation.

During my internship, I was tasked to conduct research of the various shopping centres in Singapore, to identify shopping centres where our target audience would mostly frequent and thus benefit from HPB’s physical activity programmes such as Mall walks or Mall aerobics (ever seen people dancing to Zumba, Kpop, or doing body combat in the shopping centre’s space? That’s likely us!).

From this internship, I learnt the importance of knowing your target audience (in terms of demographics) and planning. Through the research, I learnt to categorise the shopping centres in terms of their functions (whether they were family oriented/ specific to a particular audience/have the facilities to cater to our programmes). This provided me a headstart in my career with HPB, as I learnt to see things through a different lens, and to learn the various considerations that I should take in mind when planning a programme or even an event (e.g learning to stratify your target audience). I also learnt that conducting ground research is crucial, and will allow you to focus your resources on only those areas that are more likely to succeed.

Additionally, I got to learn how the various divisions in HPB worked together to promote healthy living in Singapore. Thus I am able to familiarise myself with the way HPB functions earlier, and be settled down faster.

How does the Health Screening and Management department cater to the ever-evolving healthcare landscape and needs of our nation?

In order to keep up with the ever-evolving healthcare landscape and needs of our nation, our department’s programmes are evidence-based and we keep up to date with the latest research findings on various health conditions and screening technology. An example of an evidence-based programme would be our screening programmes, whereby we promote population screenings for specific age ranges (e.g a woman aged 50-69 should attend breast cancer screening) based on evidence and learnings from other countries’ national screening programmes that cancer detection is better managed at specific ages.

We also play the role of ensuring our national screening programmes’ quality is high through working continuously with various stakeholders (such as hospitals and polyclinics) to make sure the healthcare infrastructure and our healthcare professionals are updated with latest technology and learnings to serve participants better.

What sort of career and future can an aspiring scholar look forward to should they join HPB?

When prospective candidates feel that they are attentive and passionate towards the public’s health and have the heart to serve the people, they will definitely enjoy being part of HPB. They can anticipate being involved in a range of largescaled health promotion programmes, tailored for the population, depending on the settings (such as whether screenings are conducted in the workplace as compared to in the community). Aside from this, they can also have the chance to work on healthcare policies to implement changes in Singapore’s healthcare landscape.