VOlUME 05 ISSUE 04 April 2026
Nguyen Thi Hoa
Thu Dau Mot University
DOI : https://doi.org/10.58806/ijsshmr.2026.v5i4n15Google Scholar Download Pdf
ABSTRACT
Population aging is placing increasing pressure on Vietnam's health, social security, and public service delivery systems. However, while recent policy discussions have focused heavily on physical care, social assistance, and economic development, the mental health of the elderly has yet to be placed as a sufficiently well-defined component of public governance, with corresponding data, indicators, and enforcement mechanisms. This paper analyzes this issue using qualitative policy-oriented documentary analysis combined with thematic analysis. Sources include standard documents from the World Health Organization, Vietnamese policy documents and official data, peer-reviewed domestic studies on depression and anxiety in the elderly, and several international overviews on service access, information systems, and inter-sectoral coordination. The results reveal four main bottlenecks: a weak specialized public data system; Mental health among the elderly has not yet emerged as a clear policy component; community services for elderly mental health care are underdeveloped; and a traceable inter-sectoral coordination chain from early detection to ongoing support has not yet been established. Based on this, the article proposes a data-governance-service integration model and the concept of “data-service coupling failure” to explain why available evidence has not yet translated into actionable public system capabilities. On a broader level, the case of Vietnam suggests an analytical logic that can be applied to middle-income countries simultaneously facing population aging, service fragmentation, and pressure for digital governance.
KEYWORDS:mental health; elderly; public governance; data governance; evidence-based policy; Vietnam.
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Cite this Article:Hoa, N. T. (2026). Mental Healthcare for the Elderly in the Context of an Aging Population: Public Governance and Ai Data Gap in South Vietnam. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SOCIAL SCIENCE HUMANITY & MANAGEMENT RESEARCHS, 5(4), 700-708. https://doi.org/10.58806/ijsshmr.2026.v5i4n15