Recent review of more than 180 studies on the health impact of heatwaves published during 1946-2017 reports that there are substantial gaps between the research effort on the health impact of heatwaves and the need of population. It also reports that climate change is one of the biggest global health threats in the 21st century, and one of its imminent impact is the increasing frequency, intensity and duration of heatwaves.
Research on the health impact of heatwaves is important to inform appropriate risk reduction strategies, but populations that are particularly vulnerable tend to have poorer research capacity.
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Publications & Research
Publications & Research
We provide a platform between researchers, disaster practitioners, healthcare professionals and students for expertise exchange, collaboration and policy discussion.
Publications & Research
The HKJCDPRI Publications Section contains collaborative researches and publications with our partners and renowned academic institutions, and other research and development projects related to disaster preparedness and response.
The Guidelines section contains our selected collection of technical information, operational guidelines and useful tools for disaster management.
The Blog sub-section provides a platform where our team and peers share news and updates, as well as opinions and experiences in building disaster preparedness for the communities.
The blog posts are written by the author in his own personal capacity / affiliation stated. The views, thoughts and opinions expressed in the post belong solely to the author and does not necessarily represent those of Hong Kong Jockey Club Disaster Preparedness and Response Institute.
All resources listed here are freely and publicly available, unless specified otherwise. We ask users to use them with respect and credit the authors as appropriate.
2019
28/03/2019
Recent review of more than 180 studies on the health impact of heatwaves published during 1946-2017 reports that there are substantial gaps between the research effort on the health impact of heatwaves and the need of population. It also reports that climate change is one of the biggest global health threats in the 21st century, and one of its imminent impact is the increasing frequency, intensity and duration of heatwaves.
Research on the health impact of heatwaves is important to inform appropriate risk reduction strategies, but populations that are particularly vulnerable tend to have poorer research capacity.
Campbell et al. wish to find out whether the existing research effort on the health impact of heatwaves matches with the need of different population across the globe. They mapped the regional origin of the studies and compared these to the global distribution of population characteristics related to vulnerability to heatwaves, including wealth, population density, acclimatisation capability and physical vulnerability.
What Did the Researchers Find?
Most of the studies found were conducted in North America and southern Europe, followed by China and Australia, while there are very few studies covering South America, Africa, Middle-East and Eastern Europe, where most vulnerable populations are. These populations are characterised by poverty, high population density, and higher risk of heatwaves due to geography and meteorological factors.
Most studies investigated the impact of heatwaves on risk of death but not non-fatal outcomes (e.g. ambulance use and hospital admission), because of the lack of reliable data.
Multiple studies across different geographical areas found increased rate of ambulance utility, hospitalisation or death during heatwave events.
Some studies also found that socio-economically disadvantaged sub-population (e.g. ethnic minority, socially isolated) were particularly vulnerable to the health impact of heatwaves.
What Does it Mean?
The mismatch of research effort and vulnerability reflects the challenges in conducting heatwave research in vulnerable populations, where reliable environmental and health data are of low-quality or does not exist, research capacity is low, and limited resources are available to mitigate the impact of heatwaves.
There is a general lack of data on non-fatal health outcomes, such as ambulance use and hospital admission, even though these non-fatal outcomes are more sensitive to the impact of heatwaves.
The Way Forward
We need greater effort and resources to improve the research capacity and availability of relevant data in vulnerable populations, and to increase representation from across South America, Africa, Eastern Europe, Middle East and countries in parts of Asia. More research on non-fatal outcomes is needed to understand the full effect of heatwaves.
Altogether, these are crucial to improve the preparedness of vulnerable populations in facing more frequent and severe heatwaves in the future.
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This article is summarised from: Campbell S, Remenyi TA, White CJ, Johnston FH. Heatwave and health impact research: A global review. Health & place. 2018 Sep 1;53:210-8.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1353829218301205
28/03/2019
In the event of emergencies, all stakeholders are encouraged to have effective plans which aim at mitigating the social and economic disruption of entire communities. Hence broader community engagement is a key to successful disaster risk management and emergency response. However, there has not been an up-to-date summary of the existing evidence on the enablers and barriers to community engagement in this context.
What did the research involve?
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control commissioned a study where Ramsbottom et al. reviewed 35 relevant documents published between 2000-2016.
In the event of emergencies, all stakeholders are encouraged to have effective plans which aim at mitigating the social and economic disruption of entire communities. Hence broader community engagement is a key to successful disaster risk management and emergency response. However, there has not been an up-to-date summary of the existing evidence on the enablers and barriers to community engagement in this context.
What did the research involve?
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control commissioned a study where Ramsbottom et al. reviewed 35 relevant documents published between 2000-2016.
Based on an established framework of barriers and facilitators of community engagement in the public health domain1, they qualitatively analysed these documents and classified different factors into three broad aspects, namely “Context”, “Infrastructure” and “Process”.
What Did the Researchers Find?
Across the 3-phase Emergency Preparedness Cycle (EPC): Anticipation, Response, Recovery, most of the literature focused on community engagement during the anticipation phase, and findings were:
Trust between the communities and institutions is a prerequisite of successful engagement across all phases of the EPC. When designing emergency preparedness programme, it is important to consider local convention and practices, such as methods of obtaining information of decision-making. It is also crucial to understand local culture and value systems. For example, there may be competing priorities, such as social- or healthcare issues, that prevent communities from engaging in emergency response preparedness.
It would be favourable to start by identifying local capacities (e.g. networks of mutual support) and needs to inform planning and prioritisation. Appropriate community empowerment, which would enhance their sense of ownership, would facilitate effective community engagement. In particular, a decentralised approach to allow communities to lead in some planning activities (e.g. identifying priorities) would incentivise sustained action and involvement. Hence, flexible funding allocation is especially favourable, because it could facilitate the development of locally relevant partnerships and programmes.
To build engagement change over different phases of the EPC, communication methods should be tailored to:
- the demographics and cultural characteristics of different community groups across different stages;
- recognise the diversity of the community and dedicate special effort to engage vulnerable sub-population (e.g. linguistically isolated population); and
- ensure the delivery of coherent and consistent information to establish reliability and trust.
What Does it Mean?
Institutions should understand clearly their existing relationships with the targeted communities and reach out to build trust as the foundation of successful engagement.
While it is crucial to identify community-specific resources, needs, and enablers and barriers of engagement at an early stage, engagement should be made throughout the EPC by culturally competent staff, with special dedication to vulnerable groups.
The Way Forward
A two-way communication between institutions and communities should be in place to understand the needs and capacities of communities and promote a sense of ownership, and building a partnership between institutions and communities.
Finally, more research is necessary to understand the enablers and barriers to community engagement during the response and recovery phase of the EPC.
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1 IHHD. (2015). Review 5: Evidence review of barriers to, and facilitators of, community engagement approaches and practices in the UK. London: Institute of Health and Human Development.
This article is summarised from: Ramsbottom A, O’Brien E, Ciotti L, Takacs J. Enablers and barriers to community engagement in public health emergency preparedness: A literature review. Journal of community health. 2018 Apr 1;43(2):412-20.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5830497/pdf/10900_2017_Article_415.pdf
28/03/2019
The Government of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) has a comprehensive emergency services system, a variety of contingency plans and guidelines to safeguard the safety and wellbeing of the citizens in Hong Kong.
*The documents are not owned by the HKJCDPRI, and are freely and publicly available, unless specified otherwise. We ask users to use them with respect and credit the authors as appropriate.
Publication
Publication Year
Author
The Government of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) has a comprehensive emergency services system, a variety of contingency plans and guidelines to safeguard the safety and wellbeing of the citizens in Hong Kong.
*The documents are not owned by the HKJCDPRI, and are freely and publicly available, unless specified otherwise. We ask users to use them with respect and credit the authors as appropriate.
Publication | Publication Year | Author | Description |
The Hong Kong Emergency Services
| 2018 | The Government of HKSAR | An overview and some quick facts on the Emergency Services in Hong Kong. |
Hong Kong Emergency Response Management
| Last revised 2018 | Security Bureau, The Government of the HKSAR | The Emergency Response System of Hong Kong and the specific Contingency Plans stipulating the roles and responsibilities of different government departments on various disasters. |
Guidelines for health professionals of Hong Kong on health protection
| Updated regularly | Centre for Health Protection, Department of Health, The Government of the HKSAR | Recommendations for health workers on the treatments and protocols of dealing with various infectious diseases, non-communicable diseases and laboratory testings. |
2018
22/11/2018
(Please click here for the Chinese version)(Please click here for the Chinese version)(Hong Kong, 6 Nov 2018) Hong Kong is still reeling from the impacts of super Typhoon Mangkhut after it devastated the city more than a month ago. The Hong Kong Jockey Club Disaster Preparedness and Response Institute (HKJCDPRI) commissioned the Public Opinion Programme of the University of Hong Kong to conduct a survey to gauge the public awareness and views of typhoon preparedness for Mangkhut. Findings of the survey were released today.
The survey showed that almost half (45%) of the interviewees taped windows to reduce damage and injury by broken glass which is the main precautionary measure taken by the interviewees when Mangkhut hit the city.
(Please click here for the Chinese version)(Please click here for the Chinese version)(Hong Kong, 6 Nov 2018) Hong Kong is still reeling from the impacts of super Typhoon Mangkhut after it devastated the city more than a month ago. The Hong Kong Jockey Club Disaster Preparedness and Response Institute (HKJCDPRI) commissioned the Public Opinion Programme of the University of Hong Kong to conduct a survey to gauge the public awareness and views of typhoon preparedness for Mangkhut. Findings of the survey were released today.
The survey showed that almost half (45%) of the interviewees taped windows to reduce damage and injury by broken glass which is the main precautionary measure taken by the interviewees when Mangkhut hit the city.
