scholarly journals (A85) Analysis of Health Risk Perception and Behavior Changes during Elevated Temperatures for an Urban Chinese Population

2011 ◽  
Vol 26 (S1) ◽  
pp. s24-s24 ◽  
Author(s):  
E.Y.Y. Chan ◽  
J.H. Kim ◽  
P.P.Y. Lee ◽  
C.L.Y. Lin
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Hong Kong ◽  
Heat Wave ◽  
Chinese Population ◽  
Behavioral Responses ◽  
Behavioral Changes ◽  
Multivariate Logistic Regression ◽  
The Public ◽  
Hot Weather ◽  
The Relationship

BackgroundLimited research has been conducted to understand the relationship between heat wave warnings with public awareness and behavioral changes in the Asian population. The Hong Kong Observatory introduced the “very hot weather warning” in 2000 to alert the public of heatstroke and sunburn in Hong Kong. However, the population's behavioral responses to these weather alerts is unclear. Moreover, the relationship between perceived health risks and behavioral changes has not been examined. The goal of this study is to examine the health risk perceptions and behavioral changes following public heat wave warnings in Hong Kong.MethodsA cross-sectional, population-based, telephone survey, using the last-birthday method was conducted within two weeks following a heat wave warning in 2009. A heat warning and a health study instrument, based on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) guidelines and related literature was developed and validated. Descriptive and multivariate logistic regression analyses were conducted.ResultsThe questionnaire was completed by 1,123 individuals whose socio-demographic characteristics were comparable to 2009 Hong Kong population census data. Of respondents, 83.6% were aware of the heat wave weather warning. Multivariate logistic regression of socio-demographic factors indicated that being female, those in middle age groups, and those with higher educational attainment was significantly associated with heat wave warning awareness. Among those aware of the public warning, the majority were unconcerned about potential adverse health effects, < 40% were aware of the community heat-related preparedness plans, and < 50% changed their behavior to mitigate the potential adverse health impacts of hot weather.ConclusionThis is the first study to examine climate change and health behavioral responses in an urban Chinese population. Future research direction should further investigate correlations between awareness and health protective actions, as well as the drivers for health behavioral changes that mitigate the impact of climate change.

Mediascape and Movement

2019 ◽  
pp. 100-122
Author(s):  
Francis L. F. Lee
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Protest Movements ◽  
The Public ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter reviews the relationship between the media and the Umbrella Movement. The mainstream media, aided by digital media outlets and platforms, play the important role of the public monitor in times of major social conflicts, even though the Hong Kong media do so in an environment where partial censorship exists. The impact of digital media in largescale protest movements is similarly multifaceted and contradictory. Digital media empower social protests by promoting oppositional discourses, facilitating mobilization, and contributing to the emergence of connective action. However, they also introduce and exacerbate forces of decentralization that present challenges to movement leaders. Meanwhile, during and after the Umbrella Movement, one can also see how the state has become more proactive in online political communication, thus trying to undermine the oppositional character of the Internet in Hong Kong.

‘If You Want to Be Green Hold Your Breath’: Climate Change in British Theatre

2012 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 260-271 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie Hudson
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Collaborative Work ◽  
Public Domain ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Public ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
An Inconvenient Truth ◽  
Dramatic Form ◽  
Crown Prince ◽  
The Relationship

With a rich mix of theatrical material to bring to the table, the climate-change debate playing out in the public domain would seem well adapted to the stage, and has often been presented in docu-dramatic form, as in Al Gore's well-known film An Inconvenient Truth. But until relatively recently climate change and the science relating to it have been conspicuous by their absence from the stage. Early movers on the climate-change theatre scene included Caryl Churchill's 2006 climate-change libretto for the London Proms, We Turned on the Light, and John Godber's 2007 play Crown Prince. Since then, interest has steadily increased. In 2009 came Steve Waters's double bill The Contingency Plan (On the Beach and Resilience). This was quickly followed by Earthquakes in London by Mike Bartlett in 2010, and by three further plays in the spring of 2011: Greenland, the collaborative work of Moira Buffini, Matt Charman, Penelope Skinner, and Jack Thorne; The Heretic by Richard Bean; and Wastwater by Simon Stephens. In this article Julie Hudson focuses on three of these works to explore how the plays engage with the debate through the medium of climate-change science. As her article suggests, these British climate-change plays make an important and occasionally subversive contribution to the long-running discourse on the relationship between science, the ecosystem, and human beings. In performance, they succeed in turning a subject that has been overplayed for effect in the public domain into compelling theatre. Julie Hudson is currently a visiting fellow at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, Oxford University.

scholarly journals Empirically derived dietary patterns and constipation among a middle-aged population from China, 2016–2018

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Li Li ◽  
Ai-Ping Huang ◽  
Li-Qin Wang ◽  
Xiao-Long Yu
Keyword(s):  
Dietary Patterns ◽  
Chinese Population ◽  
Multivariate Logistic Regression ◽  
Middle Aged ◽  
Food Frequency ◽  
Rome Ii Criteria ◽  
Southern Chinese ◽  
Confounding Variables ◽  
Study Population ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract Background The association of dietary patterns with constipation is not well established, particularly in Chinese population. Therefore, the present study aimed to determine the relationship between dietary patterns and the risk of constipation in a middle-aged Chinese population. Methods A total of 2267 participants aged 45–59 years were recruited in Hangzhou city, the capital of Zhejiang Province, east China from August 2016 to October 2018. Dietary intake was estimated using a semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) containing 138 food items. Constipation was defined using the Rome II criteria. Multivariate logistic regression was used to examine the association between dietary patterns and the risk of constipation. Results Three major dietary patterns were extracted by factor analysis and labeled as the traditional southern Chinese, Western and grains-vegetables patterns. The prevalence of constipation in our study population was 13.28%. Compared with the participants in the lowest quartile, the participants in the highest quartile of the traditional southern Chinese pattern were associated with reduced odds of constipation (odd ratios (OR) = 0.79; 95%confidence interval (CI): 0.626–0.981; P < 0.05), after adjusting for confounding variables. In contrast, we found no significant associations between the Western and grains-vegetables patterns and the risk of constipation (P > 0.05). Conclusions Our study demonstrated that the traditional southern Chinese pattern was associated with a reduced risk of constipation. Further longitudinal studies are needed to confirm our findings.

scholarly journals Scientific truth or debate: On the link between perceived scientific consensus and belief in anthropogenic climate change

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (7) ◽  
pp. 778-796 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raquel Bertoldo ◽  
Claire Mays ◽  
Gisela Böhm ◽  
Wouter Poortinga ◽  
Marc Poumadère ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Human Activity ◽  
Anthropogenic Climate Change ◽  
Public Understanding ◽  
The Public ◽  
Scientific Consensus ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Scientific Truth ◽  
The Relationship

Scientists overwhelmingly agree that climate change exists and is caused by human activity. It has been argued that communicating the consensus can counter climate scepticism, given that perceived scientific consensus is a major factor predicting public belief that climate change is anthropogenic. However, individuals may hold different models of science, potentially affecting their interpretation of scientific consensus. Using representative surveys in the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Norway, we assessed whether the relationship between perceived scientific consensus and belief in anthropogenic climate change is conditioned by a person’s viewing science as ‘the search for truth’ or as ‘debate’. Results show that perceived scientific consensus is higher among climate change believers and moreover, significantly predicts belief in anthropogenic climate change. This relationship is stronger among people holding a model of science as the ‘search for truth’. These results help to disentangle the effect of implicit epistemological assumptions underlying the public understanding of the climate change debate.

The Entanglement between Religion and Politics

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-32
Author(s):  
Fuk-tsang Ying
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Religion And Politics ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
State Relations ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Online Sources ◽  
The Church

Abstract The relationship between religion and social movements is an important topic in the study of religion and society. This paper uses various textual and online sources to examine the role of Christianity in the anti-extradition bill movement that took place in Hong Kong from April to September 2019. The anti-extradition bill movement, which later evolved into a much wider movement against totalitarianism, has caused churches to grapple with church-state relations in the post-handover era. This paper employs the notion of “public religion” as an analytical framework to examine the process of the “deprivatization” of Christianity in Hong Kong. How does the ongoing contestation, both within and outside the church, reflect the challenges faced by Christianity when entering the public sphere? By answering the above questions, we will be able to explicate the religio-political significance of the protest movement in Hong Kong.

scholarly journals The Atmosphere of Democracy: Knowledge and Political Action

2020 ◽  
pp. 69-91
Author(s):  
Nico Stehr
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Democratic Governance ◽  
Behavioral Changes ◽  
The Other ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThe leading scientists debating climate change increasingly view the relationship between knowledge and governance as an “inconvenient democracy.” On the one hand, the discrepancy between the knowledge of climate change and citizens’ commitments to behavioral changes amounts to the diagnosis of an “inconvenient mind”; on the other hand, the inertia of policies to capture progress in knowledge leads to the diagnosis of “inconvenient institutions.” The sense of political ineffectiveness felt especially among climate scientists provokes a strong disenchantment with democratic governance. As a result, some scientists propose that political action based on principles of democratic governance be abandoned. In my article, I argue that such a view is mistaken.

The 12-month prevalence of psychotic experiences and their association with clinical outcomes in Hong Kong: an epidemiological and a 2-year follow up studies

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Sherry Kit Wa Chan ◽  
Kaspar Kit Wai Lee ◽  
Veronica Hei Yan Chan ◽  
Herbert H. Pang ◽  
Corine Sau Man Wong ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Hong Kong ◽  
Chinese Population ◽  
Latent Class ◽  
Community Dwelling ◽  
Psychotic Experiences ◽  
Mental Health Symptoms ◽  
Health Symptoms ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract Background The relationship between the subtypes of psychotic experiences (PEs) and common mental health symptoms remains unclear. The current study aims to establish the 12-month prevalence of PEs in a representative sample of community-dwelling Chinese population in Hong Kong and explore the relationship of types of PEs and common mental health symptoms. Method This is a population-based two-phase household survey of Chinese population in Hong Kong aged 16–75 (N = 5719) conducted between 2010 and 2013 and a 2-year follow-up study of PEs positive subjects (N = 152). PEs were measured with Psychosis Screening Questionnaire (PSQ) and subjects who endorsed any item on the PSQ without a clinical diagnosis of psychotic disorder were considered as PE-positive. Types of PEs were characterized using a number of PEs (single v. multiple) and latent class analysis. All PE-positive subjects were assessed with common mental health symptoms and suicidal ideations at baseline and 2-year follow-up. PE status was also assessed at 2-year follow-up. Results The 12-month prevalence of PEs in Hong Kong was 2.7% with 21.1% had multiple PEs. Three latent classes of PEs were identified: hallucination, paranoia and mixed. Multiple PEs and hallucination latent class of PEs were associated with higher levels of common mental health symptoms. PE persistent rate at 2-year follow-up was 15.1%. Multiple PEs was associated with poorer mental health at 2-year follow-up. Conclusions Results highlighted the transient and heterogeneous nature of PEs, and that multiple PEs and hallucination subtype of PEs may be specific indices of poorer common mental health.

The relationship between famine exposure during early life and ascending aorta dilatation in adults

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Yu-qing Huang ◽  
Lin Liu ◽  
Kenneth Lo ◽  
Yu-ling Yu ◽  
Chao-lei Chen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Early Life ◽  
Chinese Population ◽  
Ascending Aorta ◽  
Late Childhood ◽  
Cardiac Ultrasound ◽  
Multivariate Logistic Regression ◽  
Fetal Period ◽  
Famine Exposure ◽  
Aorta Dilatation ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract Background and aims: The relationship between exposure to famine in early life and the risk of ascending aorta dilatation (AAD) in adulthood is still unclear, therefore we aimed to examine the association in a Chinese population. Methods and results: We investigated the data of 2,598 adults that were born between 1,952 and 1,964 in Guangdong, China. All enrolled subjects were categorized into five groups: not exposed to famine, exposed during fetal period, and exposed during early, mid or late childhood. AAD was assessed by cardiac ultrasound. Multivariate logistic regression and interaction tests were performed to estimate the odds ratio (OR) and confidence interval (CI) on the association between famine exposure and AAD. There were 2,598 (943 male, mean age 58.3 ± 3.68 years) participants were enrolled, and 270 (10.4%) subjects with AAD. We found that famine exposure (OR=2.266, 95% CI: 1.477, 3.477, P=0.013) associated with elevated AAD after adjusting for multiple confounders. In addition, compared with the non-exposure group, the adjusted ORs for famine exposure during fetal period, early, mid or late childhood were 1.374 (95% CI: 0.794, 2.364, P=0.251), 1.976 (95% CI: 1.243, 3.181, P=0.004), 1.929 (95% CI: 1.237, 3.058, P=0.004) and 2.227 (95% CI: 1.433, 3.524, P<0.001), respectively. Subgroup analysis showed that the effect of famine exposure on the association with AAD was more pronounced in female, current smokers, people with BMI ≥24 kg/m2 and hypertensive patients. Conclusion: We observed that exposure to famine during early life was linked to AAD in adulthood.

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