Climate Change and Urban Health The Case of Hong Kong as a Subtropical City

This book provides a theoretical framework and related technical skills for investigating climate change and its public health consequences and responses with a focus on urban settings, and in particular Hong Kong, a subtropical metropolis in Asia. Specifically, the book examines the impact of climate change on health in terms of mortality, hospital admissions and help-seeking, as well as key response strategies of adaptation and mitigation. Many existing books tend to consider the relationship of climate change and public health as two connected issues divided into various discrete topics. Conversely, this book explicitly applies public health concepts to study the human impact of climate change, for example, by conceptualising climate change impact and its alleviation, mitigation and adaptation in a public health framework. Overall, this volume summarises what is known about climate change and health and ignites further debates in the area, especially for urban subtropical communities from within a wider global perspective. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of environmental health, public health, climate change, urban studies and Asian studies.

Introduction Principles of Health, Public Health, and Climate Change Climate Change Impact on Disease and Health Climate Change and Disasters Research Methodology I: Climate and Health Outcome Modelling Research Methodology II: Climate and Human Behavioural Model The Case of Hong Kong Health Impact of Extreme Temperature and Heat Island Effect on Mortality Temperature Impact on General and Communicable Disease-Related Morbidities Temperature and Non-Communicable Disease Hospitalisation Climate Change Behavioural Adaptation I: Help-Seeking and Information-Seeking Behaviours under Extreme Climate Events Climate Change Behavioural Adaptation II: Bottom-Up Approach of Community Risk Perception and Self-Help Behaviours under Extreme Climate Events Climate Change Mitigation, Policies, Research Gaps, and Next Steps Conclusion

Emily Ying Yang Chan serves as Professor, Head of Division of Global Health and Humanitarian Medicine and the Assistant Dean of Faculty of Medicine at Chinese University of Hong Kong. She concurrently holds academic appointments as the Visiting Professor (Public Health Medicine) of Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, UK, and is the Co-Chair of WHO Thematic Platform for Health Emergency and Disaster Risk Management Research Network. She is author/editor of numerous titles and articles, including Public Health Humanitarian Responses to Natural Disasters (Routledge, 2017).