Somporn is a health advocate with expertise in community health impact assessment (CHIA). She develops concepts, guidelines, methodologies, and tools for CHIA and works with rights litigators and academics to facilitate CHIA learning in Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia. After working for two years as a nurse at Siriraj Hospital, she returned to her home province of Udon Thani, where she served as a professor at Boromrajchonnani Udon Thani Nursing College.

She gained experience in health impact assessment at the Office of Health System Reform and the National Health Commission Office.

She believes CHIA is a tool that empowers communities to engage in the public policy process and advocate for sustainable development and health equity. In 2012, Somporn published a guidebook titled Revitalizing Thailand’s Community Health Impact Assessment to introduce the CHIA process and its implications for policy making She established the community health impact assessment platform (www.chiaplatform.org) as a learning and practice space for people/communities who are interested in CHIA work.

Recently, Somporn has been leading a project that applies the CHIA process to address concerns over cross-border air pollution from a Laos coal-fired power plant by empowering the ethnic communities to have the capacity for monitoring the impact on humans and the environment and then negotiate with policy makers.