Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages

China is one of the world’s most natural-disaster-prone countries, and its rural population is at the greatest risk of such disasters. People living in extreme poverty regions often lack knowledge about how to prepare for disasters. The Ethnic Minority Health Project is a collaborative effort by faculties, students, local and international professionals, and community representatives from a wide range of disciplines. The team carried out systematic health needs assessments, evidence-based interventions, and evaluations using public health principles to protect and improve the health of rural Chinese communities exposed to disaster risks.

A team of young researchers led by Professor JIANG Yangzi at the Institute for Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine (iTERM) and the School of Biomedical Sciences (SBS) was granted funding for a project titled ‘The Roles and Mechanism of Tissue-Specific Stem Cells in Osteoarthritis’ in 2019.

The project was the only ‘Young Scientist Scheme project’ in the Hong Kong and Macao region funded by the National Key R&D Programme. The objective of the project is to investigate the pathological mechanism of tissue-specific stem cells to design prevention strategies for osteoarthritis and other degenerative chronic diseases.

Unaffordable housing worsens the physical and mental health of Hong Kong people, and the relative deprivation of necessities has a mediating role between housing affordability and health.

The Institute of Health Equity collaborated with the Jockey Club School of Public Health and Primary Care of the Faculty of Medicine in a study that investigated the effects of housing affordability on physical and mental health in Hong Kong. The findings show that unaffordable housing worsens the physical and mental health of Hong Kong people, and the relative deprivation of necessities has a mediating role between housing affordability and health. It was the first ‘health equity’ study of its kind in Asia.

Morningside College co-hosted an event with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra in November 2019 named “Music and the Mind”.  CUHK members gathered to enjoy a quartet performance, followed by a presentation and seminar by specialists who revealed scientific evidence of the role music can play in helping patients with disorders such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and autism.

The spread of misinformation in the digital era has made it challenging for people to find accurate resources about their health, especially the elderly. Pharmacists specialise in the safe and effective use of medications, and are in the best position to answer drug-related queries.

Ampoule is an online interactive drug-enquiry platform administered through the University for the public to find useful health information. To reach more platform users, a mobile app was launched in 2019 to provide ready-to-hand information to the public. The majority of Ampoule users are Hong Kong citizens, among them a group of elderly service workers who inquire about medication for their service members.

Hong Kong enjoys the longest life expectancy in the world, so it has become all the more important to address the social determinants of our health. Tackling the health gap in the community requires action across society. In January 2020, CUHK established the ‘CUHK Institute of Health Equity’ , which endeavours to examine and understand issues of health equity in Hong Kong, and provide input for government policy-making and intervention programmes to improve health equity in Hong Kong. It aims to establish an Asian network to promote research and exchanges on health equity in the region.