HKU Bulletin May 2004 (Vol. 5 No. 3)

6 Effects of Pollution on Health and Wealth 7 COVER STORY F or a pol lut ion exper t Tony Hedley, Professor : Chai r of Community Medicine, spends an awful lot of time on the road, but his drive to clean up the region has seen his Department take pole position in a major new study. The Department of Community Medicine has been chosen as one of the cornerstones of a new region-wide programme designed to set a benchmark for monitoring the health effects of pollu P ti u o b n l . ic Health and Air Pollution in Asia (PAPA) is the brainchild of the Health Effects Institute (HEI), a collaborative body between the US government and the private sector. Hedley said: “PAPA is a completely new approach: trying to establish studies across Asia based on the same method and the same controls. “For instance, population analyses will be standardized and subject to rigorous scrutiny and we should be able to develop a series of comparable studies.” Hedley, who recently returned from a PAPA meeting in Bangkok, Thailand, has been elected to the oversight committee of the Asia-wide project. The study covers India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Mainland China, the Philippines, Thailand and Hong Kong. Hedley said: “The HEI is a well respected global authority and coordinator on envi ronmental studies and I think this is a considerable gain to the department. “To be able to successfully compete for resources and be involved in an organizational way with this project is something we are pleased with and proud of.” The Hong Kong study led by Wong Chit Ming, Associate Professor in his Department in collaboration with Professor Malik Peiris in the Department of Microbiology is a time-related series focusing on morbidity and mortality but also designed to look at important interactions between influenza and air pollution. This two-year study will use mortality, hospital admissions and environmental data over a seven-year period. A three to four-year study headed by Lam Tai Hing, Professor: Chair of Community Medicine, also just accepted by HEI brings together multi-disciplinary groups from Guangdong, Hong Kong and Birmingham in the UK. The project will follow people over this period and look at the subject’s health in reaction to their exposure to pollution. Hedley said: “The overall aim of PAPA is to improve the evidential base of the harm caused to health by air pollution in Asia and use this to drive policy on air pollution. “Governments are not moving quickly enough to tackle this loss of lives, loss of productivity and general degradation of the environment.” Hedley bel ieves that the Depar tment of Communi ty Medicine’s reputation and record of comprehensive research into the associations between pollution and health problems attracted HEI. The Americans were also impressed by the University’s 2002 study of air quality ‘intervention’, which showed what health benefits you can achieve when you take action against pollutants. But there will be no resting on their laurels. Hedley said: “We have a meeting lined up in Boston in May and we are already preparing for this. We have a lot of work to do.”