Impact of COVID-19 on Life of Students: Case Study in Hong Kong.

COVID-19 has an impact on the day-to-day life of students, with school closure and detrimental effects on health and well-being that cannot be underestimated. A study collected data reflecting the health and well-being of secondary school students entering a programme entitled "Healthy Life Planning: Assist Students to Acquire and Practice Health Knowledge and Skills" (ASAP study) in September and October 2019 before the outbreak of COVID-19. Follow-up data were collected in June and July 2020, over half a year since the spread of COVID-19, which facilitated analyses of its impact on the health behaviours and well-being of young people.

Health Promoting Schools: An Update.

The concept of a Health Promoting School has been found to be effective to improve health and well-being of students as well as a help with teaching and learning in school. Effective implementation of Health Promoting School is a complex intervention involving multi-factorial and innovative activity in many domains such as curriculum, school environment and community. Many studies evaluating Health Promoting School do not include outcomes reflecting the organisational or structural change as many of those studies are quantitative in nature and the statistical assumptions are not valid reflecting the organisational structure changes.

Effective health promoting school for better health of children and adolescents: indicators for success.

Background: Improvement of health literacy, health behavioural change, creating a supportive physical and social environment to be more conducive to health should be the focus of child and adolescent public health. The concept of Health Promoting School initiated by World Health Organization aims to move beyond individual behavioural change and to consider organisational structure change such as improvement of the school's physical and social environment. The aim of this study is identification of the key indicators for successful implementation of Health Promoting School by analysing the findings of the school health profile based on the structured framework of Hong Kong Healthy School Award Scheme and the health status of students investigated by the Hong Kong Student Health Survey.

Urban Chinese midwives' knowledge, attitudes and practices toward umbilical cord blood donation.

Objective: This study aimed to assess the knowledge, attitudes and factors associated with promotion of umbilical cord blood (CB) donation by Chinese midwives to expectant mothers.

Design: An anonymous cross-sectional survey using self-administered questionnaires.

Setting: Hong Kong, China.

Studying Impact of Nutrition on Growth (SING): a prospective cohort for comparing the health outcomes of young children with the dietary quality score.

Introduction: This study aims to explore the prospective association between the dietary quality (DQ) of preschoolers and their health status in Hong Kong, with the body mass index as the main outcome variable.

Methods And Analysis: This prospective cohort study has recruited 3539 children aged between 2 and 4 years old, with a follow-up period of 4 years. Their diet was reported by their parents by a 3-day food diary, and their body weight and height were measured yearly with standardised instruments.

A home-school-doctor model to break the barriers for uptake of human papillomavirus vaccine.

Background: A high coverage of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination is required to achieve a clinically significant reduction in disease burden. Countries implementing free-of-charge national vaccination program for adolescent girls are still challenged by the sub-optimal uptake rate. Voluntary on-site school-based mass vaccination programs have demonstrated high coverage.

Childhood obesity management shifting from health care system to school system: intervention study of school-based weight management programme.

Background: Home and school environments conducive for unhealthy eating and physical inactivity are precursors of obesity. The aim of this study is evaluation of the effectiveness of a multi-component school-based weight management programme for overweight and obese primary school children via a home-school joint venture.

Methods: This study made use of variety of behavioural modification strategies integrating into the Health Promoting School approach to promote healthy lifestyles.

Factors influencing adolescent girls' decision in initiation for human papillomavirus vaccination: a cross-sectional study in Hong Kong.

Background: Cervical cancer is one of the common cancers among women worldwide. Despite HPV vaccination being one of the effective preventive measures, it is not included in government vaccination programme in Hong Kong. This study aimed to assess the knowledge of and attitude towards cervical cancer prevention among Chinese adolescent girls in Hong Kong, and to identify factors influencing the initiation of HPV vaccination.

General practice and social service partnership for better clinical outcomes, patient self efficacy and lifestyle behaviours of diabetic care: randomised control trial of a chronic care model.

Background: The International Diabetes Attitudes, Wishes, and Needs (DAWN) programmes have shown the existence of a critical gap in self management support and access to the support system. This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of the diabetes mellitus (DM) self management programme, with partnership between general practice and social work, on clinical outcomes, patient self efficacy and lifestyle behaviours.

Methods: In this is single blind randomised controlled trial, subjects were recruited from patients attending general outpatient clinics in the Hospital Authority New Territory East Cluster of Hong Kong.

Healthy school as an ecological model for prevention of childhood obesity.

A number of risk factors including obesity, insufficient consumption of fruits and vegetables, and lack of physical activities are responsible for the majority of chronic disease burden. Healthy behaviours should begin early in life with sustained actions, but in many countries there is no system addressing positive health. The opportunities offered by different settings for gaining entry into individuals and groups are of paramount importance for health promotion.

The status of health-promoting schools in Hong Kong and implications for further development.

An evaluation framework, called the Hong Kong Healthy Schools Award, has been developed to enable comprehensive collection and analysis of data reflecting the status of health-promoting schools (HPS) in Hong Kong. The key findings revealed a high prevalence of emotional problems, unhealthy eating habits, physical inactivity and risk-taking behaviours, leading to both intentional and unintentional injuries among students with higher prevalence among secondary school students. The results indicated a substantial lack of health policies in schools; it also indicated health services in schools not readily accessible to students and staff, and insufficient staff training in health promotion and education.

Achieving good standards in health promoting schools: preliminary analysis one year after the implementation of the Hong Kong Healthy Schools Award scheme.

Background: Improving health literacy can be a strategy for the achievement of public health goals, and the concept of the Health Promoting School can help to build on the health literacy of students. The Centre for Health Education and Health Promotion of The Chinese University of Hong Kong launched the Hong Kong Healthy Schools Award (HKHSA) in 2001. This paper reports the results for the ten secondary schools that underwent assessment in 2002.

Can Health Promoting Schools contribute to the better health and wellbeing of young people? The Hong Kong experience.

Background: The Health Promoting School (HPS) is a WHO sponsored framework, compiled to enable education and health sectors to be more effective in school based initiatives.

Aims: This study attempted to test the hypothesis that students from schools that had comprehensively embraced the HPS concept as indicated by the Healthy School Award, were better, in terms of health risk behaviour, self reported health status, and academic results, than students from schools that did not reach the standard of the award.

Methods And Results: The results presented came from nine schools (four primary and five secondary) applying for accreditation of the Healthy Schools Award after adopting the HPS framework for two years.

The SARS epidemic in Hong Kong--a human calamity in the 21st century.

Purpose: This paper reviews the epidemiology and control measures of the SARS epidemic in Hong Kong. It sets out proposals for better preparedness to tackle the disease in future.

Background: Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) started to strike Hong Kong in March 2003.

A survey of elderly diabetic patients attending a community clinic in Hong Kong.

A cross-sectional survey was conducted on Chinese diabetic patients attending a community clinic in Hong Kong. A questionnaire, physical examination and blood tests were administered. Of 155 adults with diabetes mellitus recruited, the mean age was 63 years (SD 10.

Treatment of vitiligo with autologous epidermal transplantation using the roofs of suction blisters.

We report our experience of autologous epidermal transplantation for three patients with vitiligo. The vitiligo in two patients was stable whereas that in the third was active. Autologous epidermal transplantation using suction blister roofs from normally pigmented skin was performed following the failure to repigment skin using topical steroid and/or psoralen-ultraviolet A treatment.

The need to evaluate the clinical effectiveness of traditional Chinese medicine.

Traditional Chinese medicine is gaining increasing attention and popularity in Hong Kong. There is no doubt that traditional Chinese medicine as a system of medicine works; however, this does not imply that every therapy is efficacious. Prevention of the initiation and continuation of ineffective intervention is extremely important for the efficiency of any health care system.

Osteoporosis---is it really preventable?

Osteoporosis is a major public health problem in Hong Kong. For instance, in 1995, a total of 3783 hip fractures occurred, with an associated acute care cost of HK$150 million. Thirty percent of elderly women in Hong Kong are known to have one or more vertebral fractures.

Estate doctors and policy on family medicine.

Estate doctors were dismayed by the Hong Kong Council of Social Service's publication of a survey of patients leaving clinics after consultations. The data, however, show high levels of satisfaction from patients who consulted estate doctors, and most people (and their families) attended one doctor by choice, contrary to widespread perception of 'doctor shopping' in Hong Kong. Aspects of care in Hong Kong could be improved and include short consultation times, limited discussion, and frequent usage of short courses of medication.

Opinion survey of Hong Kong private primary care doctors about cervical screening.

The policy and practice of Hong Kong private primary care doctors regarding cervical screening were investigated by way of two different questionnaires sent to comparable random survey samples. The overall response rate was 60.8% (313/515).

Epidemiology of osteoporosis.

The epidemiology of osteoporosis is reviewed in this article. Attempts were made to answer the following questions: How should osteoporosis be defined? How can risk factors and bone mineral density (BMD) measurements be applied to diagnose osteoporosis? How do the rates for osteoporotic fractures vary by country, sex, age and time? What are the costs for osteoporosis in terms of direct and indirect cost, morbidity and mortality? According to the WHO criteria, osteoporosis can be defined as a BMD of 2.5 standard deviations or more below the young normal mean.

Youth health promotion and health promoting schools: what should be the aims?

The school plays a very important role in health education and promotion at the crucial stage of childhood and adolescence. It develops personal character, skills, attitude and physique, in addition to imparting knowledge. To sustain the concerted effort to address inter-wined social, educational, psychological and health needs of children, training and ongoing reinforcement must be given to teachers.

Research on air pollution and health in Hong Kong.

The relation between air pollution and health was reviewed with reference to major air pollution incidents that occurred in the early to mid-twentieth century, and the more recent findings of health effects at relatively low concentrations of air pollutants. Findings of epidemiological studies in Hong Kong on air pollution and health were then described. These range from cross-sectional studies, before-and-after study, and the popular time series studies.