Following the 2002 public-sector reform and the Decentralization Act
1999, some public health services have been decentralized from the
MOPH to other public organizations,e.g., environment protection to the
Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, sanitation and disease
control services to local government units. Following the introduction of
the UCS in 2002, the main financial source for personal health services
including personal health promotion and prevention services has shifted
from the MOPH to the National Health Security Office (NHSO), which is
responsible for the UCS. It should be noted that the UCS health promotion
and prevention budget covers not only UCS members but also all other
Thais; all prevention and promotion services had been provided by the
MOPH free of charge to the whole population prior to the introduction
of the UCS. This also has negative consequences on non-Thais because
the UCS budget has been interpreted as being for Thais only. However,
according to unclear boundary between personal health services and
public health programmes and the new roles of the Department of Health
(DOH) and Department of Disease Control (DODC) that focus mainly
on technical support and knowledge generation, many public health
programmes have been significantly supported by the UCS budgets since
its 2001 inception.