Migration & Climate Change

The Fourth Academic Summit of UCL IRDR was held on the 16th June 2016, and the topic of focus was on mobility and climate change. While people have historically been moving about due to impacts on livelihoods due to changes in their local environment, the term “environmental migrants” was not coined till this millennium. Although “environmental migrants~ are used interchangeably with “climate refugees”, the conventional term of ‘refugee’ does not include those who flee their origins due to climate issues.

Evidence has linked climate change with a number of slow developing natural hazards such as drought and desertification, which are major causes of food shortages. Researchers think the most common cause of climate migration is the decrease in food safety in migrants’ local surroundings. With the increase of natural hazards, the number of migrants that have to move due to such climate changes will only be on the rise. As small islands are most impacted, such populations will most likely to have to leave their homes due to changes in the climate. IPCC claimed that ‘the single greatest impact of climate change could be migration’ (1990).

With the problems of the European refugee influx and other various natural disasters around the world, the humanitarian system is potentially at its breaking point where there is lack of capacity to respond to the increasing emergencies in the world. Humanitarian aid is required for those who move and also for those who do not. Those who were not able to move due to incapability adds a complex implication.

Although Hong Kong maybe relatively less susceptible to severe climate change effects where citizens have to migrate, it is nevertheless within the range of the “Pacific Ring of Fire”, hence might act as a destination for climate migrants. It may be effective to have more discussion locally to raise awareness towards such issues, and measures could be put in place in order to better deal with such matters if such events were to occur.

ECHO produces a daily map of significant humanitarian events around the world. On the 22nd June, a map of  refugees and internally displaced people by country of origin at end of 2015 was produced:

Space Hazards

Most natural hazards originate from natural events within the Earth, and are more or less measurable and predictable. Space hazards, on the other hand, are a relatively new concept amongst the general population, but that does not mean they are a less threatening hazard. Space hazards come from space weather, which is defined by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as:

“Space weather includes any and all conditions and events on the sun, in the solar wind, in near-Earth space and in our upper atmosphere that can affect space-borne and ground-based technological systems and through these, human life and endeavor.”

Some of the more common forms of space hazard include solar flares, coronal mass ejections and energetic particles. These can lead to electricity interruptions, radio/telecommunications (especially high frequency communications), and GPS problems, and GPS usage (largely affecting air traffic).

While large impact events are spaced out in the decades, recent events such as the 1989 coronal mass ejection and the more recent 2003 “Halloween storms” impacted electricity provision from a few hours up to a few days in Canada and Sweden respectively. The impacts will increase with the increased dependence on electromagnetic usage and electricity. Stoppage of electricity will bring on an even wider range of impact of cascading risks. Health care systems are potentially at the risk themselves or may be required to support health care normal functioning in the wider community.

Issues around cascading risks are complex, can cause critical infrastructure and secondary emergencies, and are mostly associated with functional dependencies, such as in complex networks. Cascading risks often infer that there are vulnerabilities in infrastructure, and are rooted in society, policies and management.

With transitions towards an all-hazard approach, it may be useful for regional partnerships that can strengthen regional resilience against space hazards in order to minimize potential cascading risks when such an event occurs. South Korea and Japan, for example have well established space observatories and mature technology that study and systems to manage such events. It is also beneficial for students to be educated on such space hazards on top of the other more common meteorological, geophysical and hydrological hazards in order to raise overall awareness.

Understanding Risks Forum 2016

The Understanding Risks Forum 2016 was held on the 16-20th May in Venice, Italy. The 4th event in the series was well attended by 650 members from 100 countries, representing over 350 organisations. Participants had the same goal of better understanding of risks and how to better incorporate science and technology knowledge for policy and decision making at a higher level.

Themes emerged from some sessions I attended, some of which were, 1) an all-hazards approach must be employed when working with natural hazards due to cascading risks; 2) scientific knowledge must be useful, useable and used to benefit the wider populations; and 3) there should be a conversion of research focus from natural hazards to vulnerability, as natural hazards are inevitable, but human behaviour can be changed.

Much of the discussion was about on one hand producing scientific knowledge that is useful, usable and used by the wider community (such as policy makers), but also empowering local communities in areas of disaster preparedness so they would have better resilience. It was raised by many speakers that the traditionally perceived vulnerable groups, such as women and aboriginal communities, actually have a lot of knowledge in locally adapted disaster resilience measures that are often ignored by scientists. NGOs and scientists might go into a community and teach them ‘evidence-based’ methods of disaster preparedness but often forget that these natural hazards has been faced by such communities for decades, even centuries. A better approach is to learn from traditional values and practices and incorporating them to our research.

Disaster risk is constantly evolving due to changes in hazard, exposure, and vulnerability; these complex dynamics have led to an increase in disaster-losses over recent decades. Urbanization and population growth are among the key drivers of this risk increase. Decisions on urban design and land use planning all contribute to future levels of risk and resilience. [excerpt taken from here]

Hong Kong is a densely populated city where every decision of land use is closely monitored to reach maximum benefit for the community. Yet land use planning in Hong Kong rarely take into account building a sustainable environment that is resilient towards natural hazards. Hong Kong is a city blessed to not experience a lot of different kinds of natural hazards, but with such rapid changes, it is important to be prepared to minimize impact.

紙上談兵

I was fortunate enough to be invited to visit the Porton Down site of Public Health England (PHE) and was shown around the exercise planning facilities. PHE hosts for the Emergo Train System (ETS), which is used for education and training of command systems, hospital preparedness and surge capacity during emergency and disasters with simulation exercises. This training system was developed in Sweden and is used in over 30 countries. Through this system, hospitals are able to test their own capacity and management in face of scenarios addressing potentially serious events.

In a new programme developed by PHE, a network of hospitals can now be tested for surge capacity and partnership across major trauma hospitals using scenarios. So far this has been shown in exercises to be a useful system as hospital managers and colleagues can, under a safe and controlled environment, experience a complex event and better envision their roles. The communication and interactive nature of these exercises are thought to be the most valuable aspect. The realistic testing of management system allows managers to exercise knowledge in real life scenarios. All hazards can be assessed, and can adapt according to need.

In Hong Kong, where emergency incidents are not common, it is even more important to regularly test such management / triage systems of hospital in order to allow those involved in decision making during emergencies to have an up-to-date knowledge on how to run the response and be trained under realistic conditions.

Habitat III (to be held in October 2016: Quito, Ecuador)

Habitat III, the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development will take place in less than half a year. It is considered as the new urban agenda, and realizes the goals of the Sendai Framework, the SDGs and COP21 in aspects of housing infrastructure in providing a sustainable living environment. The draft roadmap was published earlier in March this year.

Building on the experience of the two previous Habitat conferences, this is the first instance where more grassroot civil societies and local governments are involved, implementing a participatory approach as local actors would be the ones delivering these commitments. This is a huge leap as these stakeholders can promise their own commitments and form effective partnerships. The stress in ‘inclusion’ has also hopefully reduced inequity, where vulnerable groups are not only empowered, but also involved in decision making.

Hong Kong is a highly urbanised city, and although it cannot be generalised as such, urbanisation can be valuable for development. In Hong Kong, urbanisation affects environmental determinants such as increased vulnerabilities of living in dense high-rise properties, lack of public space, and issues of infectious diseases, all of which are predeposited to the economically less advantaged population. Hence it might be beneficial for Hong Kong to exercise this advantage to further improve on its infrastructure in sustainable living. Hong Kong should learn from other big cities with social inequalities as well, such as New York and London, and recognize that city neighbourhoods can be segregated as a spatial unit for targeted interventions.

The Foundation for Science and Technology debate (held at The Royal Society, London, UK)

The Foundation for Science and Technology hosted a discussion on building effective and efficient infrastructure in the UK, in reference to the new National Infrastructure Delivery Plan 2016 to 2021. Good, secure infrastructure is one of the most basic components to a resilient and sustainable city. Having a set of stable infrastructure is an asset in face of any instances of interrupted system such as during conflict and in disasters.

During the discussion, Lord Adonis, Chair of National Infrastructure Commission, raised that one of the biggest hindrances to infrastructure developments in the UK proposed during the talk might be the political environment, where political movement might impede on the progress of infrastructure building. This is suggested to have caused the start / stop nature to a lot of projects. He also suggested that success to some infrastructure projects can be attributed to the serendipity of regional and national cross-party consensus.

Attention to the social impacts and long-term effects of the infrastructure should also be given to prevent unfortunate results. One highlighted example mentioned by Terry Morgan, chairman of Crossrail, was the training up of hundreds of apprentices to provide skills and increase their employment in the future. This example does not only concern with the direct results of the individual project, but also the long-term consequences.

While I am not very familiar to the problems faced by a lot of Hong Kong government’s infrastructural plans, the above issues can be considered in reflection in a Hong Kong context, and leaves a lot to desire in order to reach an ideal solution for building a comprehensive and resilient infrastructure.

EnRiCH Meeting (in Ottawa)

I had the opportunity to listen via telephone conference to a presentation about a disaster that is very different from the natural disasters that I am more accustomed to learning about. The talk was given by Dr. Mélissa Généreux on the long-term public health consequences of the Lac Megantic Crash – a train wreck disaster and explosion – that occurred in Canada on July 2013.

From her talk and my further review of her publication, some of the identified causes that exacerbated the consequences of the disaster include the lack of a national framework for disaster management. Issues included a lack of data on toxic chemical levels for officials to refer to when determining evacuation of the local at risk community. There was also inadequate communication between different rescue parties and an apparent lack of information sharing that led to delay in evacuation.

Despite the differing nature of these events, the issues relating to natural disasters disaster management and their consequences seem to me to be very similar. In particular the longer term mental health impacts such as PTSD amongst the population at risk remains a common problem in my view.

Using this Canadian incident study to reflect on possible similar incidents that might occur In Hong Kong, I remember the impact of the 2012 Lamma Island ferry collision, where albeit a sufficiency of life jackets, the incident happened too rapidly for passengers to act. Despite the rapid response of rescue parties and abundance of rescue workers, casualty of the accident amounted to 39. A similar accident happened three years later at a similar area of shore, but luckily there was no casualty this time. However some passengers on-board admitted that there was distrust in the crew’s ability due to the previous incident.

If there had been a rescue plan that covers a comprehensive range of accidents, and publicly familiarized by the general population, perhaps the anxiety felt by victims and those affected can be minimized, and consequences of any future disasters can be curtailed.

Christiana Figueres of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

We went to the Grantham Lecture held by Imperial College, where Christiana Figueres of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was the speaker for the night. She once again highlighted the importance of the whole world’s attention to climate change and how society as a whole should adapt for climate change.

To summarize her speech, there are five key take-home messages: 1) action to adapt and against climate change has strong positive aspects to everyone in the world; 2) the COP21 agreement should have happened 10 years ago, and our actions have to speed up to meet the fast pace of climate change, as the world that goes above 2°C is systemically uninsurable; 3) it is vital to include women in decision-making on all other aspects of climate change; 4) there should be an inclusive approach where all relevant stakeholders (especially the private sector, universities and the funders) are included in the conversations about climate change and the delivery of actions; 5) there is imbalance in consequences: e.g. those who contribute most to climate change (e.g. the big economies) does not receive the most negative impacts (e.g. small pacific islands).

However, she was also optimistic about the current progress of climate change adaptations, and that she expects the agreement of COP21 can come into force before the expected 2020.

In summary, climate change adaptation and actions against its fast progress should be central in all science and technology developments and policy decisions. This complements decisions for disaster risk reduction, as disaster risk is exacerbated by climate change. The vulnerable populations, risks and the measures against them are all similar. In Hong Kong, there has always been attention on protecting the environment, and an increasing dialogue for disaster preparedness and climate change adaptation. An interdisciplinary platform sharing both sides of expertise could be established for the sustainable development of the city.

Watch the recording: 

Social Cohesion

I attended a seminar on the “Addressing social cohesion in urban humanitarian response” organised by the Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in Humanitarian Action (ALNAP) recently, and it tied in nicely with my MSc thesis, which was about community resilience in face of disasters.

The speakers argued that social cohesion is one of the most fundamental characteristics to maintain after the onset of the disaster. Social cohesions can easily breakdown if recovery is slow due to complexity in providing perceived basic needs such as water, sanitation and shelter, and it would be too late to start building them back.

In my previous research for my Masters thesis, I have also learnt that along with an increase in social cohesion, and a consequent increase sense of belonging within the community, there will also be an increase in community disaster resilience, which, according to UNISDR’s definition, is the community’s ability to “resist, absorb, accommodate to and recover from the effects of a hazard in a timely and efficient manner”. Thus social cohesion is an important characteristic that should not be disregarded in planning disaster response.

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Reference: Ayyub BM. Systems resilience for multihazard environments: Definition, metrics, and valuation for decision making. Risk Analysis. 2013.

Call for capacity development for Disaster Risk Reduction & Disaster Risk Management

Following the call for local, national, regional and international capacity development for the DRR sector in the Sendai Framework and the UNISDR S&T conference, there has been a further discussion about internationally accredited training that not only assures quality of training, but also allows a more standardized set of training materials.

Although there are various training programmes across the world, an internationally recognized training standard is currently lacking. Accreditation is important as it could allow a universally recognized training standard which could more efficiently improve on the quality of training all over the world, with shared resources. 

In my previous work, we have been involved in train the trainer processes where we try to empower local communities. However, although the material and teachings are standardized within our organization, they are currently not recognized by other institutes. 

It has been an interesting process to observe the discussion and these issues that could link local community interventions with global priorities. Hong Kong, as an important humanitarian resource provider in the region, could take part in order to improve on the credibility of training services.

House of Lords - Questions for Short Debate

The Earl of Selborne submitted a question for short debate to ask: “Her Majesty’s Government what progress has been made towards implementing the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030.” The short debate was held in the House of Lords in the Parliament of the UK. I had the opportunity to attend the debate as a member of the public.

The Sendai Framework, signed in Japan in March 2015, and endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly, is a 15-year non-binding agreement which “recognizes that the State has the primary role to reduce disaster risk but that responsibility should be shared with other stakeholders including local government, the private sector and other stakeholders. It aims for the following outcome: The substantial reduction of disaster risk and losses in lives, livelihoods and health and in the economic, physical, social, cultural and environmental assets of persons, businesses, communities and countries.”

A few challenges to progress and priorities for action were raised during the debate such as challenges for early and accurate warning for earthquakes (deemed quite impossible?) and for disaster risks to be incorporated into development planning in cities, such as strengthening building codes and land use. Speakers also emphasized importance for partnership with other countries in order to strengthen each other’s systems, especially for developing countries where disasters are costing big portion of their GDP. These actions are high in priority for the UK, and the UK has contributed immensely through science and technology and on monetary terms in the DRR field.

Hong Kong is in the heart of DRR development in Asia, where it has the capacity to provide scientific and technological aid to those in need, there should be more discussions on how Hong Kong, as a global player can contribute to the field of DRR particularly in places of need such as in South-East Asia and China.

On the other hand, Hong Kong should also perhaps assess whether its DRR measures are up to par to international standards and develop in areas where it does not have adequate procedures (perhaps due to perceived unimportance) such as standards for bicycle use during times of disaster or  warning systems for uncommon natural disasters.

Heatwave Plan

I attended the annual Heatwave Plan Seminar conducted by the Extreme Events and Health Protection team of Public Health England this Monday. This seminar reviewed the 2015 Heatwave plan for England. Around sixty professionals attended from a wide sector of the health and local authority community and these were supported by academics and government officials. The findings from this seminar will be added to the evolution of the Heatwave Plan for England that will be published in May 2016 by Public Health England and its wider partners including the National Health Service for England and Local Authorities.

As Hong Kong, being in the subtropical climate, is also very prone to heatwaves in the summers, it was interesting to see what England does as a nation to reduce excess mortality and adverse health effects associated with heat and I found it an opportunity for learning on how science can inform policy and practice and its evaluation takes place with Public Health England. I had the opportunity to be a rapporteur for two sessions which allowed me to participate in the process more fully.

During the summer of 2003 a heatwave in August caused a high excess mortality across the whole of Europe. The Heatwave Plan in England started in 2004 as a response to this event. It has since been updated annually to reflect issues identified in the previous year, accommodating new relevant scientific evidence and renewing actions for the year. This has been crucial in in reducing heatwave impact despite England being in a relatively cool climate.

Unlike Hong Kong, England is not as hot and humid. However, with the temperatures rising each summer, overheating is a looming problem in England, coupled with the inadequate ventilation in buildings, especially in single aspect dwellings and high rise blocks on urban heat islands. One of the main recommendations in England is for improved building standards, with designs for passive cooling systems and green areas in its surrounding environments. The use of air-conditioning is also not as common as in Hong Kong as it is not a long term sustainable solution to the heat, due to the amount of power it consumes and related issues of fuel poverty. One of Hong Kong’s main issues is its high reliance on air-conditioning indoors. On top of that, in Hong Kong, like England, the population most vulnerable to heatwaves – the elderly – often do not see themselves as susceptible to heat-related illnesses and often are not willing to turn on their air-conditioners in order to cut costs. Hence there may be a need for a comprehensive heatwave plan in Hong Kong.

The Heatwave Plan Seminar identified as one of the challenges that a lot of useful data and recommendations does not appear to be reaching those who are actually affected by the heat, such as elderly living in social isolation, and may stop at higher levels such as managers of care homes rather than getting used by their staff and residents. Overheating in care homes has been identified as a problem, so a need to raise awareness is important and even to encourage more effective sharing of the leaflet designed for guidance to case home managers and their staff. Therefore the question of how to effectively deliver the message and have greater involvement of the community and the private sector (such as the housing sector) to mainstream the awareness of keeping cool during the summer remains a priority.

Keeping Quality

I had the honour of playing the role of an observer in two quality governance meetings within the organisation recently. Before that, I had little idea how quality is kept for work done within PHE.

Some of the key messages I got out of these two meetings was that even though it was absolutely necessary to celebrate good practice, it was also important to record and learn lessons from instances that did not go well and communicate these lessons. 

This has again reminded me the importance of dissemination of information between different groups. In order to keep accountability of an organisation, a culture of quality-keeping and good governance must be maintained, with a comprehensive plan of communication reaching all levels, not only reaching those in senior roles, in order to allow higher transparency of the quality keeping agenda.

As there is no comprehensive plan for disaster risk reduction in HK yet, when establishing such plan, it would be vital to also incorporate a plan for quality control across departments in order to maintain accountability of all actions and publications carried out.

The Urban Hong Kong

This week, I was involved in a paper on why an urbanised area has specific risks and how contents from the conference can be translated into the built environment. More than half of the world’s population live in an urban setting, and the numbers are only going to increase. This requires careful planning and the input of scientific evidence in coordinating solutions specific for an urban setting.

Hong Kong is not particularly susceptible to natural disasters, but according to the Sustainable Cities Index, we are the third highest in the world for risk of natural disasters. Hong Kong is an urbanised area where impacts of climate change and other naturalised events are starting to take a toll. Hong Kong is a very typical urban heat island, frequent victim to typhoons, and perhaps more severely affected, heatwaves. With an urban migration to Hong Kong, there is no doubt that the high density of residents will ultimately exacerbate urban disasters.

In Hong Kong, Hung Shui Kiu is currently the only development that will be following a sustainable plan where urban spaces and low carbon lifestyles will be considered. However its resistance towards natural disasters have been little mentioned, with only typhoons taken into account. Climate change is happening and the future risks are unpredictable. The government must act fast in order to establish more sustainable and resilient developments.

Assessing Health-system Capacity for Crisis Management

While discussing possible work for my duration of my internship in PHE, I was provided with the suggestion of proposing a plan for assessing Hong Kong’s Health-system Capacity for Crisis Management. This is of utmost importance to evaluate what is currently in place in order to improve the system.

Climate change might also bring about new hazards previously not common for Hong Kong, such as the intense cold surge a few weeks earlier, where some citizens might not have acted rationally in the cold, perhaps due to such rare drop in temperature and lack of public education, thus endangering their own lives and those of the rescue teams.

Although the Hong Kong emergency system is faring well under current circumstances, we must be ready to fight against unknown and unpredicted risks. Perhaps we can learn from other countries what they do better than us and adapt new preventive measures into a Hong Kong context? It is also vital to educate the public on how to react to such adverse weather events in prevention of accidents in the future.

Aftermath of UNISDR Conference

It has been a week since the conference and we have received numerous messages of congratulations and praise on the organizing committee’s hard work for organizing the conference.

In Public Health England’s perspective, we released a blog post on the importance of this high-level conference. Professor Murray also explains the history and different resources that interlink to create the pathway towards this conference. Scientists’ important input towards disaster risk reduction around the world was also highlighted

We were also honoured to be mentioned in Duncan Selbie’s weekly Friday message of activity highlights:

It’s also one of the busiest weeks since I started work here. We have two weeks to compile and create one piece of conference proceeding to be submitted as a journal article, where we talk about the discussions held during the conference, and some of the outcomes that were reached and agreed upon. 

Research Gaps

This conference aims to bring science and technology into the planning and implementation of disaster risk reduction measures. In order to come up with an effective comprehensive multi-disciplinary approach, there needs to be an interdisciplinary collaboration where expertise and pooled to maximize the utility of resources.

During the conference and while writing up the proceedings of the conference, what struck me most is the fragmentation of the scientific community. Each research group and organisation has their own research agendas and communication between different parties is minimal. This has led to a lot of duplication in research areas and research gaps in areas that are perhaps more difficult to work in. One of the biggest gaps in science and technology is the mapping of all researches that are being undertaken in order to fill in the gaps and improve efficiency of research. Partnerships can thus be formed to further improve the quality and breadth of research.

Hong Kong is a small city, and the main research institutes are mostly affiliated with a university system. Each research institute has its own networks and areas of expertise, hence a collaboration can perhaps make the most out of the pool of existing resources. For example, those that research on the disaster risks of vulnerable populations can collaborate with those that research in health service infrastructures to come up with health policy recommendations that can be comprehensive, needs-based and have a multi-hazards approach.

This sharing of research directions, which allows the transparency of research interests, allows for the mapping of areas that are research-rich where ideally partnerships can form, and most importantly, identify the gaps in research where there is a necessity.


The other important issue is the dissemination of knowledge to the public. There are an abundance of research topics in Hong Kong, yet most of these researches that are done for the community have not been effectively translated into laymen language for dissemination to a wider audience. With the sharing of resources brought on by partnerships, maybe there will be an increased capacity in translating research information to a more general public?

Young Scientists Side Event

Inside the conference center

One of the events that hit me close to heart is the young scientists’ side event during the conference. I am a young scientist, hence I felt much more involved.

Although there can definitely be improvements on the process of the event, the outcome has made me proud. I was very impressed seeing the enthusiasm of the young scientists. As young scientists are often disregarded in the science community due to young age and lack of experience, their opinions are often ignored. The young scientists’ platform accumulates the power of young scientists from all over the world and acts as a bigger spokesperson with higher bargaining power in order to make young scientists’ voices heard. Young scientists’ biggest asset is creativity as they are not bound by societal rules. This can be beneficial when novel inputs are needed where ideas are exhausted, such as identifying research gaps.

Hong Kong’s young people are never afraid to let their voices be heard. However, there is no effective young scientist platform as such, where young scientists can congregate and share knowledge and form partnerships. While there are a lot of student associations and organisations for youth, there is no big voice that represents young professionals. In order to show the science community the assets we have, young scientists have to unify to form a formal platform in order for ideas to be shared. I believe the passion a lot of young people have can make a significant impact on the research scene in Hong Kong.



A visit to Geneva will not be complete without the obligatory photo of the broken chair.

Preparations of UNISDR Conference

It has been a hectic week, with final preparations for the conference. It is only a few days countdown for it. I have learnt so much during the preparation leading up to the conference. This is the first time I’ve been involved in something in such scale and such height in the global arena. I will share more about my academic learning more after the conference. But first I would like to express my absolute amazement in all the people skills I have learnt working with the team and the organizing committee during this preparation.

As the scientists involved in the conference, ranging from the speakers to the organizing committee are all from different parts of the world, it has been a challenge getting information and details across to all target participants. However the zeal eluded from all that are involved, while striving for the same goal, is priceless. There are precious lessons to be learnt from each country’s practices and  each DRR initiative  hence this conference seem to be the perfect platform to share ideas to improve each others’ practices. It also offers an opportunity for collaboration with each other, and with the Sendai Framework.

Although Hong Kong is not particularly hit by a lot of major natural disasters, prevention is better than cure, hence it would be useful to learn and adopt preventive DRR measures in the future.

Banner for our conference at the Centre International de Conférences Genève!

Disasters all over the world

Other than preparation for the UNISDR conference, one of my tasks here include a weekly bulletin sent out to a subscription list that involves those interested in global hazards. This bulletin includes natural disasters around the world that has made significant impact both to human lives and in a public health perspective.

During the research for this bulletin, it was humbling to come across so many neglected incidents happening around the world. Most of these stories do not make headlines as they do not make a significant enough impact on human lives to raise attention, but nonetheless make sufficient impact on the affected population. Although these events seem trivial compared to larger world events, the lives of the affected are significantly destructed and even destroyed. The bulletin is useful as small impact disasters should merits attention too.

While it is understandable that media attention can lead to increased public attention and hence support, it is also worrying about the events that do not even make it onto the news due to remote geography or social isolation of the populations. How can we effectively reach all these populations? How would we even know about these disasters?

Whilst there are numerous non-governmental organisations trying to reach such communities, they often act on a needs based and only react after emergencies happen. Although there are various organisations that engage in bottom-up resilience building work, a full coverage is impossible. Hong Kong is a relatively small place, but even at this age and technology, many settlements in the countryside and ethnic minorities (such as the large domestic helper populations) are still often neglected in policy making and services. There needs to be a bridge to reach the forgotten populations. 

New beginning in 2016

I have been very honoured to be the recipient of the HKJCDPRI Overseas training Fellow scholarship to work as an intern in Public Health England for a few months. The first week of 2016 has been a very exciting week for me, moving back to London again and starting a new job at a totally new environment.

As much of my work centers around the UNISDR Science and Technology Conference on the Implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015 – 2030 (“UNISDR conference” in future references), it was easy to engage in my tasks without much induction.

Thankfully, one of my first assigned tasks was to research for a poster about Public Health England’s (PHE) work for poster presentation during the UNISDR conference. While doing the background reading for this poster, I was able to quickly understand the vast range of services provided and work PHE is involved in.

Not only is PHE heavily involved in protecting health of the national population, producing extreme weather plans such as the cold weather and heatwave plan, it is also involved in numerous partnerships at a regional and international level, such as collaborations with WHO Europe and their work on Ebola in Sierra Leone. It was eye-widening to see the vast number of departments within PHE and to see the variety of work done in PHE at so many levels. I think I should make it my goal to understand more the work for each of the teams here!