Guest Comments by Civic Exchange

Editor's Note: Civic Exchange is a Hong Kong public-policy think-tank.

HONG KONG – Together with the University of Hong Kong's School of Public Health, we have released an upgraded version of the Hedley Environmental Index (hedleyindex.sph.hku.hk) revealing that the average annual number of avoidable deaths attributable to Hong Kong air pollution in the past five years is 3,200, more than three times the previous estimates.

The sharp increase reflects: new methodologies for calculating health impacts of different pollutants; better understanding of the relative impacts of roadside and ambient pollution; and an increase in the total deaths by all causes in Hong Kong's expanded population.

“Although these new figures are substantially higher, the truly frightening thing is that they're still conservative numbers that account for only the short-term health impacts of Hong Kong's air pollution,” said Professor Anthony Hedley, honorary professor at the School of Public Health after whom the index is named. “Studies from other jurisdictions strongly suggest that the impacts will be larger still when the data from cohort studies, which measure the long-term impacts, are included.”

When launched in 2008, the original index was the world's first source of real-time information on the public-health impacts of air pollution. It has been widely used by public-health academics, environmental NGOs and government officials. It remains the only publicly available source of information on the public health impacts of Hong Kong's air pollution.

ARCHIVES