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Tag: Hong Kong

HKBU study finds strong association between PM2.5 and neurological disorders

Posted on by HKBUCPRO

A comprehensive, systematic meta-analysis conducted by Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) scientists found a significant association between exposure to PM2.5, i.e., fine particulates with equivalent diameters of less than 2.5 microns suspended in the air, and neurological disorders.

These include stroke, dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Neurological disorders are the leading cause of disability and the second leading cause of death worldwide, posing serious challenges to global health.

The paper with the study’s finding was published in the academic journal Science of the Total Environment and has become the top 1% highly-cited paper worldwide by citation in the field of Environment and Ecology, according to Essential Science Indicators (ESI).

As systematic reviews and meta-analyses on the association between PM2.5 exposure and neurological disorders have been limited so far, the HKBU research team, led by Professor Ken Yung Kin-lam, Professor of the Department of Biology of the University, analysed a total of 1,645 articles published by June 2018 and identified 80 eligible studies that covered a population of more than 6.33 million from 26 countries or regions in all continents except Antarctica.

Previous meta-analyses of a similar nature covered at most seven countries, and nearly all of them were lightly polluted. In contrast, HKBU’s study covered countries and regions known to have more serious air pollution problems, such as Chile, China and India.

After a series of statistical analyses of the data published in the selected studies, the research team used odds ratio (OR) to represent the association between PM2.5 exposure and the risk of different neurological disorders. Odds ratio, commonly used in public health analysis, is a measure of association between an exposure and an outcome. An odds ratio value of 1 indicates that exposure does not affect the odds of an outcome; a value of over 1 means exposure is associated with higher odds of an outcome.

The results revealed that exposure to PM2.5 in general increases the risks of stroke and stroke mortality, with the risk associated with long-term exposure more significant than with short-term exposure. It also showed that the risk of stroke in heavily polluted areas is higher than that in lightly polluted areas.

Analysis results of the association between PM2.5 exposure and the risks of developing other neurological disorders were studies. The results revealed that PM2.5 exposure is strongly associated with increased risks of Alzheimer’s disease, ASD, Parkinson’s disease and dementia.

PM2.5 is typically made up of heavy metals, organic carbon and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons suspended in the air. According to studies, some of the tiny particles and soluble components can enter the bloodstream by many pathways, such as crossing the blood-brain barrier and gaining access to the central nervous system. These particles can induce inflammation, death of cells and DNA damage.

“While various hypotheses were suggested on the underlying mechanisms of how PM2.5 causes different types of neurological disorders, it remains an area with many unknowns for biomedical scientists to explore. More vigorous research endeavours are required before we can fully understand the mechanisms, based on which we can formulate effective environmental and public health strategies in response,” said Professor Yung.

7 September is the 2nd International Day of Clean Air for blue skies designated by the United Nations General Assembly, with the theme “Healthy Air, Healthy Planet”, which emphasises the health effects of air pollution.

“The International Day of Clean Air for blue skies reminds us of the urgency for national governments and the international community to collaborate and take swift, effective actions to improve air quality, given its extensive health implications. Our study made it clear that PM2.5 exposure, a typical indicator of air pollution, is closely associated with many neurological disorders, and thus improving air quality will be a direct response to this public health challenge,” said Professor Yung.

EdUHK Policy research contributes information for Health Care reforms in Mainland China and Hong Kong

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The healthcare systems of the mainland and Hong Kong face similar challenges of spiralling costs in the face of increasing demand from a more prosperous and ageing population and a surge in non-communicable diseases. Hong Kong government reforms aim to reduce the burden on the overstretched public healthcare system.

The public policy research by Dr Alex He Jingwei, Associate Professor and Associate Head (Research and Development) at the Department of Asian and Policy Studies, The Education University of Hong Kong, has contributed to knowledge informing large-scale reforms in both mainland China and Hong Kong and generated public debate.

His work provided a significant reference in a major government-supported reform blueprint for the mainland’s healthcare system, much of it now being implemented in the State Council’s 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020), engagement with policymakers, and media engagement in mainland China and Hong Kong, reaching an audience of at least a billion people.

In the past decade, healthcare costs in China have grown 5 to 10 percentage points higher than GDP growth. Without reforms, healthcare costs are expected to increase five-fold by 2035 and account for over 9% of GDP, up from 5.6% in 2014. Therefore, Dr He’s research has focused on healthcare costs and sustainability in Hong Kong and mainland China.

He has conducted research across three main areas which have played an important role in informing both policy and the public debate: (1) doctor-patient relationships in mainland China; (2) healthcare governance in mainland China; and (3) private health insurance in Hong Kong.

In a survey of 506 doctors in Shenzhen, Dr He found that when the doctor-patient relationship was poor, doctors were more likely to practice “defensive medicine”, involving over-prescription of drugs and diagnostic tests to avoid liability and future medical disputes. These practices have had a negative impact on the healthcare system’s capacity and sustainability.

In his research on healthcare governance in mainland China, Dr He identified how the limited capacity of the social health administration impeded policy reforms, in particular practices desired by policymakers for cost-effective strategic and third-party purchasing of health care funded by universal social health insurance. While the government set up a broad network for social health insurance, poor administrative capacity has prevented the desired outcomes, such as cost containment. He developed further insights into healthcare in mainland China through a comparative review of health financing reforms in Hong Kong and Singapore.

In Hong Kong, spending on healthcare is predicted to take up as much as 27% of the government budget by 2033, as the population ages and relies on the public service for about 90% of inpatient care. Dr He has conducted research to inform the planning of health financing and long-term care reforms by conducting surveys on the public’s attitude to the government’s preferred policy option for voluntary healthcare insurance and their willingness to pay for private insurance.

Dr He’s research in mainland China has improved understanding of areas of the healthcare system that need reform and has had a significant impact on policy design and implementation. A blueprint for reforms, from the high-profile study conducted for the World Bank, the World Health Organisation, and the Chinese Government, “Healthy China: Deepening Health Reform in China, Building High-Quality and Value-Based Service Delivery”, cited six of his articles, making him one of the most extensively cited researchers informing the study. The report has been highly valued by the Chinese government as an important reference for health policy and reform, as evidenced by Liu Yandong, Vice Premier of the State Council of China.

In Hong Kong, Dr He’s studies informed policy debate, having an impact on government and industry understanding of public attitudes to health finance reform, and informing policy making. A senior policymaker at the Food and Health Bureau invited him to present and discuss the findings of his research on voluntary health insurance. Dr He was also invited to brief the Hong Kong Federation of Insurers, a key stakeholder in health financing reform.

Dr He has contributed to improving public awareness of health-reform options through extensive media engagement in Hong Kong and mainland China. His research on the doctor-patient relationships and broad health policy reform options achieved local and international media attention, reaching an audience of more than one billion.

For the full article of the impact case study, please visit here.

E-learning journal co-edited by EdUHK’s professor ranked first for six consecutive years

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The Internet and Higher Education, co-edited by Professor Lim Cher Ping, Chair Professor of Learning Technologies and Innovation at The Education University of Hong Kong, who took over as Editor-in-Chief in 2015, was ranked first again in the e-learning category for the sixth consecutive year (2015 to 2020), according to the latest SCImago Journal Rank.

Under the Education category, the journal has been ranked consistently in the top 15. The 2021 Journal Citation Reports of Clarivate Analytics showed that the journal was ranked fifth by the Journal Impact Factor (7.178) in the Education and Educational Research category, and was ranked second by the Journal Citation Indictor (5.01) in the same category.

EdUHK Dr Winnie Lam’s online evidence-based assessment system for student group activities

Posted on by eduhk

Undergraduate students usually need to collaborate with others to complete various types of group projects. However, it is not easy to distribute the work evenly among the group members, and some members are even called “free riders” because of their small contributions to the project.

As a result, teachers usually receive complaints at the end of the semester on this issue. In view of this, Dr Lam Wai-man at the Department of Mathematics and Information Technology of The Education University of Hong Kong developed an Online Evidence-based Assessment System called GMoodle for collaborative learning.

Instead of assessing the final outcome, the process of collaboration is recorded. Students can keep track of the progress of individuals and their group members in GMoodle. Whereas teachers can make use of the progress report to set assessment criteria and identify free riders.

As it is not easy to ensure all students are actively and equally contributed and collaborate with each other in group projects, this system can provide an objective measure to reflect the actual contribution and activeness of each student. It is also useful for students to review their learning goals.

Besides, each student has an individual GMoodle account to store their own learning activities. Once they have logged in the platform, they can view their contribution scores and compare theirs with the average in class to understand their learning progress is on track or not. Most importantly, students can make use of the discussion forum, chat room and Wiki report to create a proactive collaborative learning environment.

GMoodle has been recognised for its innovation and creativity. It obtained the Silver Medal and Special Award – Special Inventor Award in the International Invention Innovation Competition in Canada in 2019. Riding on the success, Dr Lam invited other external parties to collaborate for further development and improvement of the platform.

Future developments in the pipeline include incorporating AI and data mining to customise learning materials, applying to multi-disciplinary courses, adding more collaborative tools, adding co-teaching features, and launching in secondary schools.

BOC–HKBU Chinese medicine community scheme offers free rehabilitation services to low-income stroke patients

Posted on by HKBUCPRO

Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) and the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui (HKSKH) Welfare Council have received a generous donation from the Bank of China (Hong Kong) (BOCHK) for the three-year “BOC–HKBU Chinese Medicine Community Stroke Prevention and Rehabilitation Scheme”.

The Scheme provides free Chinese medicine rehabilitation treatments to 500 eligible low-income stroke patients and it also offers free preventive treatments and tracking assessments to 1,200 people who have a medium to high risk of having a stroke.

The launch ceremony for the Scheme was held on 29 July on the HKBU campus. Dr Cheung Wai-lun, Project Director of the Chinese Medicine Hospital Project Office, the Food and Health Bureau; Mr Jimmy Sun, General Manager of the Institutional Business Department, BOCHK; Professor Alexander Wai, President and Vice-Chancellor of HKBU; and Dr Lee Ching-yee, Director of HKSKH Welfare Council Limited, officiated at the ceremony.

In his speech, Professor Alexander Wai said the School of Chinese Medicine (SCM) at HKBU launched Hong Kong’s first full-time Chinese medicine undergraduate programme funded by the University Grants Committee in 1988. Since then, SCM has been providing Chinese medicine services to the community and promoting Chinese medicine education, research and healthcare services in Hong Kong.

“Apart from reducing public healthcare expenses, improving the quality of life of stroke patients, and increasing the success rate of rehabilitation initiatives, the BOC-HKBU Chinese Medicine Community Stroke Prevention and Rehabilitation Scheme can also serve as a good example of how we can construct a community medical service management model based on collaboration between the Chinese medicine sector and the community,” he said.

Mr Jimmy Sun said: “BOCHK has all along taken a proactive approach to its social responsibilities, and it has continuously supported primary healthcare and the development of Chinese medicine. We have maintained a long-term partnership with HKBU in the area of Chinese medicine, including a donation to its School of Chinese Medicine to establish the Bank of China (Hong Kong) Chinese Medicines Centre in 2003, and the offering of Chinese medicine supplements for pneumonia prevention to frontline medical staff in collaboration with the University’s Anti-SARS Action Group in the fight against the SARS outbreak. In the future, BOC will continue to support the development of Chinese medicine so that more Hong Kong citizens can benefit.”

Dr Lee Ching-yee said the HKSKH Welfare Council has worked with SCM through a medical-community collaboration to set up community clinics since 2017. In particular, teachers and students from SCM visited elderly people in the Kowloon City district to follow up and deal with their physical pain problems. “The community clinics set up by this Scheme officially opened in January this year. In just half a year, the project team received more than 100 applications. With professional treatments administered by Chinese medicine practitioners and follow-ups organised by social workers, many successful cases have been observed,” she said.

Mr Wong Hon-kwong, a beneficiary of the Scheme who received half a year of free Chinese medicine and acupuncture services, said: “I could not open my left palm before, but I can now. My friends can see my progress.” His wife also said that he has improved his mobility. As a result,  he can now walk more smoothly, and these developments have boosted his self-confidence.

The BOC–HKBU Chinese Medicine Community Stroke Prevention and Rehabilitation Scheme, which started in October 2020 and runs until September 2023, mainly serves people aged 60 or above who are Comprehensive Social Security Assistance or Old Age Living Allowance recipients, or stroke patients from low-income families. Stroke patients under the age of 60 who are in need of support can also join the Scheme after an assessment by social workers or a referral from one of the SCM clinics.

Under the Scheme, experts from SCM will form treatment teams and formulate a six-month treatment programme for stroke patients.

Patients will receive free Chinese medicine, acupuncture and massage treatments two to three times a week, up to 72 times in total. SCM will arrange for Chinese medicine practitioners to visit the patients, or alternatively, the practitioners will invite them to receive their treatments at the elderly centres of the HKSKH Welfare Council. It is expected that about 500 people will benefit from the Scheme. Furthermore, the Scheme will provide counselling and support services for older stroke patients and their family members.

In addition, SCM clinics and the HKSKH Welfare Council’s elderly centres will set up health management stations for stroke patients, with SCM offering training to suitable older people who can then go on and serve as Chinese medicine senior ambassadors for stroke prevention. Using a soon-to-be-launched website, the ambassadors will assess the risk of stroke in other older people in the community and promote stroke prevention messages.

Around 1,200 older people with a moderate to high risk of stroke will be referred to the HKSKH Welfare Council’s elderly centres to undergo a one-year preventive treatment programme and follow-up assessments. The website will also provide recommendations on balanced diets and appropriate exercises for people with a low to medium risk of stroke, and alert high-risk individuals to seek medical treatment.

Those who are interested in participating in the Scheme can call 6533 9972 or 2333 1854 for any enquiries, or they can complete the following online form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdCoJwAYWDzOpxXvzkOYkRx0_7xB8GvZeuscb7B98jtiwItGA/viewform

EdUHK Scholar studies COVID-19-related stress and mental health problems of parents

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COVID-19 not only threatens people’s physical health, but also creates disruption in work and social relationships. Parents experience additional strain resulting from extra childcare responsibilities. This is even more pronounced with parents of children with developmental disorders, which calls for the need for increased parenting support services and family-friendly policy initiatives in Hong Kong.

Dr Randolph Chan Chun-Ho, Associate Head and Assistant Professor at the Department of Special Education and Counselling, The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK) conducted a study to (1) investigate and compare the prevalence of COVID-19-related stress and mental health problems between parents of children with developmental disorders and those of children with typical development, and (2) examine the association of COVID-19-related stress with mental health problems.

In May 2020, the study recruited 129 parents of 8-to-10-year-olds, with either developmental disorders or typical development, from 12 mainstream primary schools in Hong Kong.

It was found that close to 75% of the parents indicated that their work and social lives had been significantly disrupted because of the social-distancing measures in Hong Kong. When schools were closed, children had to stay at home, meaning parents had to reorganise childcare. Nearly two-thirds of the parents reported significant difficulty in taking care of their children and experienced strain trying to balance the demands of childcare and work. More than half of the parents expressed concern about the risk of them and their children being infected with COVID-19.

The findings showed that parents of children with developmental disorders are at greater risk of parenting stress than parents of children with typical development. The parents of children with developmental disorders showed more severe symptoms of depression and anxiety than their counterparts. 25% of them met the criteria for clinical depression, and 13.7% met the criteria for generalised anxiety disorder. Parenting stress during the COVID-19 pandemic explained heightened levels of mental health problems among parents of children with developmental disorders as compared to parents of children with typical development.

Given the elevated risk of parenting stress and mental health problems observed among parents of children with developmental disorders, the study recommends timely positive parenting support to reinforce parent-child relationships, alleviate parents’ psychological distress, and help them cope with health worries and parenting stress. In addition to parenting programmes to enhance competence and efficacy, web-based skills programmes can be offered to parents who are in need of professional support and guidance. Online counselling and support group services, and family friendly policies can also help parents have a more balanced life during this critical time.

The research has been published in Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, please visit here for details.

EdUHK Scholar co-authors article published in Nature Climate Change

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A team of leading climate social scientists, including a chair professor at The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK), argues that influential studies that attempt to quantify different countries’ “fair shares” of climate action have put forward a biased and oversimplified view of what is primarily a political and ethical discussion.

The Perspective piece, “Ethical choices behind quantifications of fair contributions under the Paris Agreement,” published in the pre-eminent academic journal Nature Climate Change, comes as the world’s governments are expected to release new national plans for climate action ahead of climate negotiations later this year in Glasgow, Scotland, and defend them as “fair and ambitious”.

One of the article’s co-authors is Professor Paul G. Harris, Chair Professor of Global and Environmental Studies in the Department of Social Sciences at EdUHK, who has spent three decades conducting research and writing about climate justice and governance.

The piece evaluates a selection of recent effort-sharing studies to determine whether they are explicit about the ethical choices underlying their analyses. Reviewing sixteen studies that quantify equitable effort sharing between countries under the Paris Agreement, the authors find that nearly two-thirds (10 studies) present themselves as neutral or value-free, despite being limited to a small and biased subset of ethical perspectives on effort-sharing that tend to favour wealthier countries.

“It is widely assumed that climate change is a technical or political problem. It is more accurate to conceive of it as a normative problem in which disagreements about what is just, fair and equitable crowd out co-operation on social and technological solutions,” said Professor Harris.

Sivan Kartha, Senior Scientist at the Stockholm Environment Institute added, “Studies that incorrectly purport to be neutral and objective are not just misleading, they can even be harmful. In this case, they can set unrealistic expectations about what countries might be expected to contribute to a global climate effort. Even if it’s not intentional, one can imagine the problems caused by a body of literature with a consistent bias toward wealthier and against poorer countries.”

In particular, the ‘grandfathering’ of emissions, where countries argue their status as high emitters is a justification for continued high emissions, should not be included in equity assessments of global climate action. This is a key source of the systematic bias in favour of wealthier, higher emitting countries.

Other studies claim objectivity by averaging a spectrum of equity approaches, commonly choosing a subset that excludes important ethical concepts. For instance, when many analyses quantify a country’s capacity to allocate resources to a global climate effort, they routinely treat a dollar earned by a poor citizen as wholly equivalent to a dollar earned by a rich citizen.

Many indicators ranking nations’ efforts to address climate change “say they’re about equity, but there’s still a systematic bias in favour of the biggest historical polluters. As we review efforts in the ‘global stocktake’ of the Paris Agreement, these kinds of indicators must be transparent.  Otherwise, they are anti-equity,” said Timmons Roberts, Professor of Environmental Studies and Sociology at Brown University and Director of the Climate Social Science Network.

“Studies should be explicit about the ethical and moral implications of their underlying assumptions, and equity assessments of countries’ climate action must be based on ethically defensible principles, such as responsibility, capacity and need,” said Dr Kate Dooley, Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne and lead author of the study.

Professor Harris added: “This article helps to reinforce what we already know from other aspects of life: reliance on statistical indicators can result in potentially unjust outcomes. It’s more important than ever to view the ethical challenges of climate change holistically and qualitatively.”

The authors propose new guidelines that emphasise transparency in communicating the ethical underpinnings of assessments of climate action and suggest guidelines for developing policy-relevant — but not ethically neutral — equity research, which includes studies of equitable distribution of climate efforts should not claim value-neutrality; analysis needs to ensure that the losses of those who are potentially marginalised remain clearly visible, and analytical work should aim to inform rather than supplant the political process.

HKBU secures funding from RGC Theme-based Research Scheme to build platform technologies for symbiotic creativity

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A research project led by Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) titled “Building Platform
Technologies for Symbiotic Creativity in Hong Kong” has been awarded HK$52.8 million in research funding from the Theme-based Research Scheme (11th round) under the Research Grants Council (RGC) for a five-year project. This is the first time that major funding has been allocated by the RGC for an art-tech project.

The research team will develop platform technologies for symbiotic creativity, providing unlimited art content for humans, including an art data repository, an artificial intelligence (AI) creative algorithm system, a research theatre, a digital art and policy network, and some unique and creative application projects, to usher in a new era of the art technology.

 Led by Professor Guo Yike, Vice-President (Research and Development), and Professor
Johnny M Poon, Associate Vice-President (Interdisciplinary Research), at HKBU, the research team will develop an immersive and interactive extended reality (XR) platform to capture human data during the artistic creation and appreciation process, which includes the cognitive and physiological data of artists and the audience, such as brain waves, body temperature and heart rates, gait and movements, etc. The platform will then convert the data into the descriptors of cognition, emotions, and behavioural patterns.

The researchers will associate and link the artworks with the descriptors to build a comprehensive and extensive data repository for artificial intelligence model training. It will enable machines to learn human aesthetics, instead of mimicking art created by humans.

 The platform will also enable the audience to immerse themselves in a virtual world. They will be surrounded by images, sounds, etc, and have new artistic experiences. In addition, the immersive and interactive XR platform will be equipped with a number of sensing devices, which will help the artists to go beyond the traditional forms and boundaries and communicate and interact with the audience in new ways.

“This research project has secured funding from the RGC, demonstrating that Hong Kong
attaches great importance to the development of artistic and creative technologies based on AI. This project stands at the forefront of the arts and science nexus, harnessing the power of science and technology to advance human and AI interaction in art creation. It will foster a new direction in art created by both humans and machines,” said Professor Guo.

 “We will spare no effort in building a world-class AI art creation platform, and it will
drive a new revolution that transforms the creative and cultural industries. It
will enable Hong Kong to assume a leading position in art-tech on the global stage,”
he added.

 Under this project, HKBU will launch three application projects: the Super AI artist – the
world’s first “Combined Music and Art Biennale”, which will host multidisciplinary musical works and artworks jointly created by humans and AI; Shared Mind and Empathetic AI – a concert series featuring a three-way collaboration between performers, the audience and machines; and Symbiotic Opera – a new form of opera that integrates with immersive XR technology, and it will be jointly created by humans and machines in an immersive virtual
world.

 Members of the multidisciplinary research team led by HKBU include cognitive scientists,
AI and data scientists, media scientists, ethicists and art policy scholars from Yale University, the University of Cambridge, Imperial College London, the University of Kent, Tsinghua University, the University of Hong Kong and City University of Hong Kong. The research team will also collaborate closely with industrial and musical partners, including Huawei, Microsoft, SenseTime and Opera Hong Kong. 

EdUHK scholar develops intervention to promote health and fitness

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Urbanisation, technological advances, and increasing convenience in everyday life have restricted the amount of physical exercise most people engage in, resulting in major public health concern. This persistent and growing health-related problem calls for an acute need to develop an intervention programme that can effectively promote physical activities, not only at the individual level but also at the family, community, and citywide levels.

Whether positive psychology concepts can be integrated with health-promotion behaviours among families had largely been unknown until researchers in Hong Kong developed a positive physical activity (PPA) intervention. This has been made possible by using the positive psychology concepts of joy, gratitude, and savouring to promote Zero-Time Exercise (ZTEx) (which involves integrating simple physical activities into everyday life) and improve physical fitness in Hong Kong families.

Dr Henry Ho Chun-yip, Assistant Professor at the Department of Psychology of The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK), together with other researchers and healthcare professionals, worked with different stakeholders during the study, including the government, social service organisations and schools. A cluster randomised controlled trial was conducted with 1,983 participants in 1,467 families in Hong Kong. Data were collected using structured questionnaires and physical fitness assessments before the intervention and in follow-ups one and three months after the trial.

Social workers and teachers of the participating organisations and schools were trained to design and implement the community programmes. The training workshop was delivered by clinical psychologists, registered social workers, registered nurse, and academic researchers to comprehensively cover the contents of positive psychology, physical activity, programme design and programme evaluation.

The study measured the self-reported frequency of ZTEx both alone and with family members and assessed balance and endurance as indicators of physical fitness. It found that PPA intervention was effective in increasing ZTEx with both groups in each time periods, and in improving balance and endurance in the three-month follow-up.

Semi-structured focus groups added in-depth insights into the participants’ motivational, interpersonal and affective experiences. The findings showed that PPA intervention is a cost-effective way to improve physical activity and fitness and that a community-based collaborative approach was successful in engaging community stakeholders in an active and fruitful partnership for programme development.

The findings support the proposition that health promotion behaviour is maintained when the participants experience positive emotions during the activities. Through the application of positive psychology, the participants associated ZTEx with feelings of enjoyment, which nurtured unconscious motives for this health promotion behaviour, thus leading to a successful lifestyle change and improved physical fitness.

This study has important implications for Hong Kong, where 71% of adults did not meet the WHO physical activity recommendations.

EdUHK Scholar’s recently published study covers humans’ historical adaptation to climate change

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A research team including a scholar from The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK) has given a new perspective into human adaptation to climate change. The study’s findings were recently published in the prestigious academic journal Nature.

Climate change is an important issue which has been extensively discussed over the past years. While many experts believe that climate change has had a profound impact on human history, to date there has been little discussion about how humans have reacted to these altering circumstances.

With this in mind, a research team of 18 experts from different countries and disciplines undertook a study to understand the interplay between what they have called “History of Climate and Society”. The team sought to examine the role of human resilience to climate change in shaping human history and the complex connection between them.

Led by Dr Dagomar Degroot from Georgetown University, the research team comprised 18 scholars from the Germany, Poland, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States, mainland China and Hong Kong. Their expertise covers geography, archaeology, history to paleoclimatology. Among the team was Dr Pei Qing, Assistant Professor of the Department of Social Sciences at EdUHK, who contributed to revising the design and framework of the entire study.

To understand the effect of climate change on human history, the team selected different societies across continents for case analysis covering two climatic eras: the Late Antique Little Ice Age around the 6th century; and the Little Ice Age from the 13th century to the 19th century. Among these cases, Dr Pei also contributed to the Asia case study – the rise of the Jianzhou Jurchens during the early 17th century – in collaboration with Dr Cui Jianxin from the Northwest Institute of Historical Environment and Socio-Economic Development of Shaanxi Normal University.

The pair found that although both the Jianzhou Jurchens and the Ming Dynasty were affected by drought through monsoon failure, the former thrived and survived because of their higher mobility, thanks to their tradition of hunting and gathering. This enabled them to adapt through encroaching on cultivated land to the south and controlling trade networks.

The interdisciplinary team also looked into how, in the 6thcentury, people in the Middle East under Roman rule made use of the humid climate to cultivate and expand their territory; how, in 13thcentury, the governments of Bologna and Siena used strategies like food regulations to deal with natural disasters and minimise famine and mortality; and how, in the 17th century, Dutch sailors took advantage of precipitation and prevailing winds to defend themselves against Spanish invasion. These cases showed how human resilience to climate change could help explain the rise and fall of different political regimes or dynasties in human history.

Dr Pei said, “Many studies in the past have demonstrated the impact of historical climate change on human societies, particularly on a long-term and large spatial scale. However, our study provides a new perspective for academic research, indicating that the communities could effectively respond to the challenges of climate change.”

According to Dr Pei, historical cases also tell us that successful adaptation to climate change usually depends on the ability of a community to control or capitalise resources.

Dr Pei pointed out that this study provides insights for the public to reflect upon the resilience of different peoples against climate change. “When a country acts to deal with changing climatic conditions, its measures may bring a negative influence to other countries. When formulating climate actions or related policies, countries should not only consider their own benefits, but also their neighbours, and even the whole world, so as to pursue and realise the equitable principle of combatting climate change.”

The study also uncovered several common criteria of historical societies that coped well with climate change, including strong trade networks, high mobility and the capacity to learn from mistakes. “Human societies’ evolving resilience and historical successes have given us confidence in dealing with global warming. However, we should also carefully consider our relationship with nature and learn the lessons from our history,” Dr Pei said, adding that he hoped this study would provide a solid academic foundation for the scholars to better explore the relationship between historical climate change and human societies in the future.

The original publication can be found in Nature.