The ASEAN is committed to strengthening disaster health management in the region through the articulation of a set of priorities in the ASEAN Leaders’ Declaration on Disaster Health Management (ALD-DHM) that was adopted at the 31st ASEAN Summit on 13 November 2017. One of the priorities includes establishing the collaboration mechanism for comprehensive capacity strengthening on disaster health management at national and regional levels. The priorities include education and academic activities which the Declaration aims to “Strengthen the cooperation and enhancement of active Academic Network among DHM Programme to conduct research and extract lessons learned from DHM in multiple events and countries, in support of the development of new solutions and innovation”.

The ASEAN Academic Network on DHM (AAN-DHM) was established as one of the regional  mechanisms to support the Regional Coordination Committee on Disaster Health Management (RCC DHM) in the implementation of the Priority Area on Knowledge Management. Through the adoption of the TOR of AAN-DHM at the 15th AHMM in May 2022 and the nomination of designated representatives of NFPs, the AAN-DHM has started to discuss and firm up plans for the implementation of knowledge management activities, including the establishment and biennial publication of the ASEAN Journal of Disaster Health Management (AJDHM).