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Objectives In 2003, Ontario introduced a patient enrolment system as part of health care reforms, aimed at enhancing primary health care services, but it is unclear whether immigrants have benefited from this health care reform. Therefore, we studied whether this reform changed the extent of immigrants' enrolment in primary care services in Ontario between 2003 and 2012. Methods This is a population-based retrospective cohort study, in which a closed cohort of 9231840 Ontario residents between 1985 and 2003 was created, using linked health administrative and immigration databases. Levels of enrolment for traditional and more comprehensive capitation-based practice between 2003 and 2012 were compared by immigrant status. Logistic regression modelling was used to assess the odds of enrolment on primary care practices. Results Overall enrolment in primary care practices increased gradually after 2004, until 2012, when two-thirds of the cohort (67%) were enrolled. The immigrants' enrolment level remained consistently lower than that of long-term residents over the study period. By 2012, enrolment of immigrants in capitation-based models was significantly lower (17.3% versus 25.4%). In particular, enrolment in Family Health Teams, considered the most comprehensive care model, was considerably lower in immigrants compared with long-term residents (5.6% versus 18.0%; OR = 0.40, 95% CI: 0.40 to 0.41). Conclusions Immigrant enrolment rates in new comprehensive primary care models were consistently lower than among long-term residents. This has implication on equitable primary care access for immigrant populations.

Urban heat island (UHI) has been identified as a threat to urban living quality in the context of climate change. As awareness of the impacts of urban expansion on local climate increases, urban planners/decision makers attempt to incorporate climatic considerations into the planning process. An increasingly-used urban climatic analysis scheme— Local Climate Zone (LCZ) classification— has been applied in Hong Kong, a high-density city with heterogeneous an urban environment. This study aims to evaluate the LCZ mapping in such a unique urban context using in-situ air temperature data. The fine-scale spatial variation of the daytime and nighttime screen-level air temperatures was investigated via mobile measurements during the summertime of 2016. The measured data were collated in Geographic Information System (GIS) based on the current LCZ maps. Statistically significant air temperature differences were observed between most LCZ classes, which confirm the veracity of LCZ in high-density heterogeneous urban contexts. Higher uncertainties in the site-averaged air temperature and considerable intra-LCZ air temperature differences in LCZs 1 to 6 were observed. It indicates that the current LCZ procedures of Hong Kong can be further refined for a better understanding of the climatic heterogeneity in densely built urban areas.

The World Urban Database and Access Portal Tools (WUDAPT) is an international community-based initiative to acquire and disseminate climate relevant data on the physical geographies of cities for modeling and analysis purposes. The current lacuna of globally consistent information on cities is a major impediment to urban climate science toward informing and developing climate mitigation and adaptation strategies at urban scales. WUDAPT consists of a database and a portal system; its database is structured into a hierarchy representing different levels of detail, and the data are acquired using innovative protocols that utilize crowdsourcing approaches, Geowiki tools, freely accessible data, and building typology archetypes. The base level of information (L0) consists of local climate zone (LCZ) maps of cities; each LCZ category is associated with a range of values for model-relevant surface descriptors (roughness, impervious surface cover, roof area, building heights, etc.). Levels 1 (L1) and 2 (L2) will provide specific intra-urban values for other relevant descriptors at greater precision, such as data morphological forms, material composition data, and energy usage. This article describes the status of the WUDAPT project and demonstrates its potential value using observations and models. As a community-based project, other researchers are encouraged to participate to help create a global urban database of value to urban climate scientists.

While the incidence of active tuberculosis (TB) in Canada is among the lowest in the world, the rates of TB among immigrants and Indigenous people remain high. In fact, the majority of new active TB cases are disproportionately found among immigrants. This study profiles TB-related acute care hospitalizations among new immigrants to Canada by selected characteristics.This study is based on the 2000-to-2013 Longitudinal Immigration Database (IMDB) linked to the Canadian Institute for Health Information's Discharge Abstract Database (DAD) from 2001/2002 to 2013/2014. It examines the timing of first TB-related acute care hospitalization occurring from the fiscal year 2001/2002 to the fiscal year 2013/2014 among immigrants who landed in Canada from 2000 to 2013 outside of Quebec and the territories. Mean and median hospital days and the percentage of total TB hospitalizations incurred by these new immigrants are calculated to measure the burden of hospital care among recent immigrants.From 2001/2002 to 2013/2014, 1,120 out of 2.7 million immigrants arriving between 2000 and 2013 were found to have, in total, 1,340 TB-related hospital discharges. The majority of cases (97%) were among immigrants from the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) designated country list for TB, in which abour three quarters of the cases were from the World Health Organization (WHO) list of high TB-burden countries. Approximately half (45%) of immigrants hospitalized for TB were aged 18 to 34 at the time of hospitalization. Around 10% of all TB patients had been hospitalized before formally landing as immigrants. Mean and median length of hospital stay were 17 days and 11 days, respectively (22 days and 14 days, respectively, for the overall population in Canada). While new immigrants who landed between 2000 and 2013 represent 7% of the overall population of Canada, they incurred 17% of all TB-related hospital discharges occurring during this period.This paper demonstrates the value of linked administrative data to understanding immigrant health and is important for future work in this area. Current immigration protocols surrounding TB involve screening for active pulmonary TB and identifying some migrants with latent TB. Results of this study, linking TB-related hospitalizations to immigrant landing files, provide unique information that can inform public health action, as well as migration policy and program development to contribute to the efforts to eliminate TB.

Urban heat island (UHI) effect significantly raises the health burden and building energy consumption in the high-density urban environment of Hong Kong. A better understanding of the spatiotemporal pattern of UHI is essential to health risk assessments and energy consumption management but challenging in a high-density environment due to the sparsely distributed meteorological stations and the highly diverse urban features. In this study, we modelled the spatiotemporal pattern of UHI effect using the land use regression (LUR) approach in geographic information system with meteorological records of the recent 4 years (2013–2016), sounding data and geographic predictors in Hong Kong. A total of 224 predictor variables were calculated and involved in model development. As a result, a total of 10 models were developed (daytime and nighttime, four seasons and annual average). As expected, meteorological records (CLD, Spd, MSLP) and sounding indices (KINX, CAPV and SHOW) are temporally correlated with UHI at high significance levels. On the top of the resultant LUR models, the influential spatial predictors of UHI with regression coefficients and their critical buffer width were also identified for the high-density urban scenario of Hong Kong. The study results indicate that the spatial pattern of UHI is largely determined by the LU/LC (RES1500, FVC500) and urban geomorphometry ( h ¯ , BVD, λ ¯ F , Ψsky and z0) in a high-density built environment, especially during nighttime. The resultant models could be adopted to enrich the current urban design guideline and help with the UHI mitigation.

© 2017 Elsevier B.V. Building performance evaluation is crucial for sustainable urban developments. In high-density cities, occupants suffer from poor living conditions due to building overheating, especially during increasingly frequent near-extreme summer conditions caused by climate change. To represent this situation, the summer reference year weather data was employed for building simulations using DesignBuilder. This study aims to evaluate the thermal comfort and energy consumption of four typical public rental housing (PRH) building types in Hong Kong. For free-running flats, results show generally higher air temperatures in the oldest PRH type (Slab) with a compact linear building form and the most sensitive response to outdoor temperature changes for another older PRH type (Trident) with a Y-shaped design, possibly owing to its high wall conductivity. Occupants in all building types experience a ???10% increase in the proportion of discomfort hours when compared to results for typical summer conditions, but overheating is the most severe in Slab type PRH. Following an initial assessment of the cooling energy usage, a simple sensitivity test was conducted to explore the potential energy savings by various passive design strategies, including shading and reducing the exposed cooled space. A cross-shaped building form also appears to be more energy efficient. These findings, complemented by further parametric analyses, may prove useful when designing buildings for climate change.

Understanding the urban microclimatic spatial distribution and its impact on thermal comfort is important for integrating climatic consideration into urban design process. This article presents a case study in Tsim Sha Tsui and Tai Po of Hong Kong densely built-up areas to investigate the spatial distribution of microclimatic condition. Air temperature (Ta), wind speed (v), relative humidity (RH) and globe temperature (Tg) of 87 locations in two selected sites were measured on a summer day and a winter day respectively. Physiological Equivalent Temperature was calculated to analyse the thermal comfort condition in two sites. Both numerical simulation and geographical mapping approach were used for the estimation of the microclimatic spatial distribution. Results show that the influence of urban morphology on the microclimatic spatial distribution can be well investigated by using numerical simulation while geographical mapping based on measured data shows higher estimation accuracy due to the consideratio...

We investigated the joint use of the high-resolution WorldView-2 optical satellite images and the multitemporal TerraSAR-X synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite images to extract building height information in high-density urban areas. The main idea of the proposed fusion approach is to take full advantage of both data sets in building height retrieval. The proposed approach includes two main stages. First, initial building height estimates are extracted from WorldView-2 stereo images and multitemporal SAR images. These initial results are then combined using a novel object-based fusion approach, in which the heights of points for the same building footprint are retrieved and integrated. Experiments on the Mong Kok area of Hong Kong showed that the proposed approach using both data sets outperforms the use of either stereo images or SAR images alone. According to the results of the proposed approach, the average absolute height retrieval error is 6.53 m, which is much lower than using stereo and SAR images (9.08 and 12.24 m, respectively). The proposed fusion approach is suitable for building height retrieval in urban areas where single satellite data have limitations.

To determine whether there are differences in disability by immigrant generation and region of origin and recency of arrival in Canada, and the role of health literacy in this relationship.A secondary analysis of the Canadian component of the 2003 International Adult Literacy and Skills Survey (IALSS) was undertaken.Compared to the third-plus generation, first-generation immigrants were less likely to report disability; these differences remained even after adjustment for sociodemographic and socioeconomic factors. No differences in disability were observed between the second- and third-plus generations. Among first-generation immigrants, those not from Europe or USA were less likely to report disability regardless of their duration in Canada. Health literacy was negatively associated with disability only in the analysis comparing generations of Canadians. However, its effect was largely accounted for by education, employment status and income.First-generation immigrants were less likely to be disabled than the other generations. Education, employment and income provide important avenues through which individuals develop health literacy. Health literacy was not associated with disability among first-generation immigrants perhaps because health literacy is low in this group.

Due to the rapid urbanisation, the urban environment has been changed and deteriorated. One of reasons is lack of consideration and implementation of climatic and environmental information in urban planning. Thus, there is a need to develop a systematic method for city planners and policy-makers to make scientific and evidence-based decisions in the urban climatic and environmental field. Taking Wuhan as an example, this study aims to provide a practical framework to identify planning goals and guidelines for master and district planning, based on the results of roughness modelling. Both meteorological information and 3D urban morphology data were simplified and integrated in a Geographical Information System (GIS) to provide the detailed information of the urban permeability distribution. Based on this spatial distribution information, both master and district planning goals for better urban wind environment can be particularly identified and corresponding planning strategies can be established. With this spatial urban permeability information and the joint effort from local town plans and policy-makers of the Planning Bureau of Government, urban planning strategies for different spatial scales and districts can well corporate with each other and be interwoven into the whole urban planning process.

Particulate matters (PM) at the pedestrian level significantly raises the health impacts in the compact urban environment of Hong Kong. A detailed investigation of the fine-scale spatial variation of pedestrian-level PM is necessary to assess the health risk to pedestrians in the outdoor environment. However, the collection of PM data is difficult in the compact urban environment of Hong Kong due to the limited amount of roadside monitoring stations and the complicated urban context. In this study, we measured the fine-scale spatial variability of the PM in three of the most representative commercial districts of Hong Kong using a backpack outdoor environmental measuring unit. Based on the measurement data, 13 types of geospatial interpolation methods were examined for the spatial mapping of PM2.5 and PM10 with a group of building geometrical covariates. Geostatistical modelling was adopted as the basis of spatial interpolation of the PM. The results show that the original cokriging with the exponential kernel function provides the best performance in the PM mapping. Using the fine-scale building geometrical features as covariates slightly improves the interpolation performance. The study results also imply that the fine-scale, localized pollution emission sources heavily influence pedestrian exposure to PM.

Ventilation in cities is crucial for the well being of their inhabitants. Therefore, local governments require air ventilation assessments (AVAs) prior to the construction of new buildings. In a standard AVA, however, only neutral stratification is considered, although diabatic and particularly unstable conditions may be observed more frequently in nature. The results presented here indicate significant changes in ventilation within most of the area of Kowloon City, Hong Kong, included in the study. A new definition for calculating ventilation was introduced, and used to compare the influence of buildings on ventilation under conditions of neutral and unstable stratification. The overall ventilation increased due to enhanced vertical mixing. In the vicinity of exposed buildings, however, ventilation was weaker for unstable stratification than for neutral stratification. The influence on ventilation by building parameters, such as the plan area index, was altered when unstable stratification was considered. Consequently, differences in stratification were shown to have marked effects on ventilation estimates, which should be taken into consideration in future AVAs.

Previous studies found a relationship between geriatric depression and social deprivation. However, most studies did not include environmental factors in the statistical models, introducing a bias to estimate geriatric depression risk because the urban environment was found to have significant associations with mental health. We developed a cross-sectional study with a binomial logistic regression to examine the geriatric depression risk of a high-density city based on five social vulnerability factors and four environmental measures. We constructed a socio-environmental vulnerability index by including the significant variables to map the geriatric depression risk in Hong Kong, a high-density city characterized by compact urban environment and high-rise buildings. Crude and adjusted odds ratios (ORs) of the variables were significantly different, indicating that both social and environmental variables should be included as confounding factors. For the comprehensive model controlled by all confounding factors, older adults who were of lower education had the highest geriatric depression risks (OR: 1.60 (1.21, 2.12)). Higher percentage of residential area and greater variation in building height within the neighborhood also contributed to geriatric depression risk in Hong Kong, while average building height had negative association with geriatric depression risk. In addition, the socio-environmental vulnerability index showed that higher scores were associated with higher geriatric depression risk at neighborhood scale. The results of mapping and cross-section model suggested that geriatric depression risk was associated with a compact living environment with low socio-economic conditions in historical urban areas in Hong Kong. In conclusion, our study found a significant difference in geriatric depression risk between unadjusted and adjusted models, suggesting the importance of including environmental factors in estimating geriatric depression risk. We also developed a framework to map geriatric depression risk across a city, which can be used for identifying neighborhoods with higher risk for public health surveillance and sustainable urban planning.

Economic immigrants generally, and economic class principal applicants (ECPAs) specifically, tend to have better health than other immigrants. However, health outcomes vary among subcategories within this group, especially by sex.This study examines hospitalization rates among ECPAs aged 25 to 74 who arrived in Canada between 1980 and 2006 as skilled workers, business immigrants, or live-in caregivers. The analysis used two linked databases to estimate age-standardized hospitalization rates (ASHRs) overall and for leading causes by sex. ASHRs of ECPA subcategories were compared with each other and with those of the Canadian-born population. Logistic regression was used to derive odds ratios for hospitalization among ECPAs, by sex.Male and female ECPAs aged 25 to 74 had significantly lower all-cause ASHRs than did the Canadian-born population in the same age range. This pattern prevailed for each ECPA subcategory and for each disease examined. Compared with skilled workers, business immigrants had lower odds of hospitalization; live-in caregivers who arrived after 1992 had higher odds. Adjustment for education, official language proficiency, and world region reduced the strength of or eliminated these associations.Compared with the Canadian-born population, ECPAs generally had low hospitalization rates. Differences were apparent among ECPA subcategories.

ObjectivesIn Canada, refugees represent between 10% and 15% of the total immigrant annual in-take of immigrants. Refugees are generally admitted with different selection criteria and have different settlement challenges which may lead to higher health risk, compared to other categories of immigrants. The purpose of this study is to use linked hospital and immigrant landing data to report hospitalization rates among refugees arriving to Canada between 1980 and 2006 with special focus on those from refugee-dominant source areas, namely Poland and Vietnam, and the Middle East. ApproachData from the 2006/07-2008/09 Discharge Abstract Database (DAD) were linked to the 1980-2008 Immigrant Landing File (ILF) to identify hospitalizations among immigrants by category of admission. Age-standardized hospitalization rates (ASHR) for overall causes (excluding pregnancy), and for selected causes are derived for refugees overall and by specific source country. Rates are compared with those for the Canadian-born population and with economic class immigrants from the same source country. ResultsOverall, refugees had substantially lower overall ASHR compared with the Canadian-born population (494 per 10,000, 95% CI, 487, 500 vs 891 per 10,000, 95% CI, 890, 892, retrospectively). Among refugees, those who landed in Canada (refugee claimants) had the highest ASHR (539, 95% CI 524,555), especially for circulatory disease. Among refugee-dominant areas, Government-assisted refugees from the Middle East tended to have higher ASHR at levels comparable with that of the Canadian born population (for circulatory disease). Refugees had higher rates of hospitalization compared with their economic class counterparts, except among those from Poland. ConclusionRefugees, like other immigrants, generally had lower hospitalization rates compared with the Canadian born population, but the heterogeneity within groups reveals specific vulnerability for certain types of health care use.

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of zinc dialkyl dithiophophates (ZDDP) and ash-less triphenyl phosphorothionate (TPPT) on hydrogen-free diamond-like carbon (DLC) coatings. For many years, ZDDP have traditionally been used in engine oils as antiwear (AW) and extreme pressure (EP) additives. However, additives containing sulfated ash, phosphorus and sulfur (SAPS) have a detrimental effect on the exhaust after-treatment device found on modern vehicles. Besides the automotive industry, DLC is also used in hydraulic applications where zinc-free and ash-less hydraulic fluids have gradually gained popularity in recent years. Design/methodology/approach – The tribological tests were performed using a disk-on-cylinder tribometer, where the stationary hydrogen-free DLC-coated steel disk formed a line contact with an uncoated rotating steel shaft under lubricated conditions. Findings – It was found that TPPT and ZDDP separately at a concentration of 1.0 wt% increased the amount of friction of the base oil by approximately four times. TPPT appeared more effective than ZDDP in minimizing wear on the DLC-coated surface. Also, primary ZDDP seemed to have a more detrimental effect on the DLC-coated surface compared to a mixture of primary and secondary ZDDP. With regard to surface roughness of the hydrogen-free DLC-coated surface, the values corresponding to a lubricant containing TPPT were lower than those obtained for a lubricant with ZDDP and a lubricant without any additive. Originality/value – This is the first report on the effects of ZDDP and ash-less TPPT on the tribology of hydrogen-free DLC coatings.

In an urban planning context, an assessment indicator for evaluating a city's dispersion potential is beneficial, especially if the city has a complex natural terrain and significant wind variations. A study was conducted to implement an urban canopy drag indicator, taking site wind variation into account by involving both wind speed and direction in the calculations. Hong Kong (HK) was taken as an example due to its complicated natural topography and wind characteristics. A spatial distribution of an urban canopy drag over HK was determined based on wind data from 2004. The urban canopy drag values in three highly urbanized areas in HK, including Kowloon West, Kowloon East and Hong Kong Island North, were obtained and are discussed in detail. A fluid particle tracking program was developed and applied to identify the major wind paths in Kowloon West, with an area of approximately 5.5 × 6 km as an example. We analyzed the diurnal variation in the dispersion times and the major wind paths in the region during both summer and winter. Our results estimated that the horizontal dispersion times of Kowloon West during both winter and summer were approximately 20 min. By combining the wind paths from both seasons, we identified several major wind paths and critical ventilation areas in Kowloon West. This paper demonstrates the potential use of an urban canopy drag indicator for assessing air ventilation and pollutant dispersion in a city planning context.

This paper proposes a method to predict the hourly Hong Kong representative sky from Typical Meteorological Year data. An evaluation of the sensitivity of the vertical sky component demonstrates that the Hong Kong representative sky can provide better results than the Perez all-weather sky model. Error reductions of 9–23% can be expected in the four cardinal directions. To predict the Hong Kong representative sky from the Typical Meteorological Year data, a clear sky index can be derived from global horizontal irradiance. Three Hong Kong representative skies can be classified by the clear sky index corresponding to skies 1, 8 and 13 of the Hong Kong representative sky, respectively. The predicted hourly Hong Kong representative sky can provide the sky luminance data for the dynamic simulation of buildings.

In recent years, there has been much attention on the effects of lubricant additives on the friction and wear properties of surface coatings. However, little research has been conducted to investigate the influence of antiwear additives on the tribological performances of titanium nitride (Ti–N) and titanium aluminium nitride (Ti–Al–N) coatings. It has been reported that introducing aluminium into Ti–N coatings enhanced their oxidation resistance. In this study utilising a pin on cylinder tribometer, lubricants containing zinc dialkyl dithiophosphate (ZDDP) or a more environmentally friendly alternative, ashless triphenyl phosphorothionate (TPPT), were used. Experimental results revealed that ZDDP and TPPT helped to reduce wear on both coatings through the formation of a tribofilm, although it was also found that both additives increased the friction coefficient on both surfaces. Based on overall findings, this paper suggests the use of TPPT as a suitable ZDDP replacement for providing wear protec...

In recent years, there has been significant attention paid to the effect of lubricant additives on the tribological properties of advanced surface coatings. However, not many research papers have addressed the influence of additives on the tribological performance of chromium nitride (Cr–N) coatings. In this study, lubricants containing zinc dialkyl dithiophosphate (ZDDP) or triphenyl phosphorothionate (TPPT) were used to conduct tribological tests based on a disc on cylinder tribometer. The wear scars formed on the Cr–N coated discs were analysed using surface sensitive analytical techniques such as field emission scanning electron microscope and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. Results showed that both ZDDP and TPPT (to a lesser extent) enhanced friction reduction compared to pure base oil on the Cr–N surface. Results also indicated that both antiwear additives helped to improve wear protection on the Cr–N coating. At the same treat rate, TPPT gave better antiwear performance than ZDDP.

In high-density megacities, air pollution has a higher impact on public health than cities of lower population density. Apart from higher pollution emissions due to human activities in densely populated street canyons, stagnated air flow due to closely packed tall buildings means lower dispersion potential. The coupled result leads to frequent reports of high air pollution indexes at street-side stations in Hong Kong. High-density urban morphologies need to be carefully designed to lessen the ill effects of high density urban living. This study addresses the knowledge-gap between planning and design principles and air pollution dispersion potentials in high density cities. The air ventilation assessment for projects in high-density Hong Kong is advanced to include air pollutant dispersion issues. The methods in this study are CFD simulation and parametric study. The SST κ–ω model is adopted after balancing the accuracy and computational cost in the comparative study. Urban-scale parametric studies are conducted to clarify the effects of urban permeability and building geometries on air pollution dispersion, for both the outdoor pedestrian environment and the indoor environment in the roadside buildings. Given the finite land resources in high-density cities and the numerous planning and design restrictions for development projects, the effectiveness of mitigation strategies is evaluated to optimize the benefits. A real urban case study is finally conducted to demonstrate that the suggested design principles from the parametric study are feasible in the practical high density urban design., Highlights • The study clarifies the air pollutant dispersion mechanism in high-density cities. • The study addresses the urban traffic pollutant problems and provides the solutions. • The study relies on a parametric study that tests the performance of design options. • The study validates LES and RANS models using wind tunnel data. • The study provides understandings to map the pollutant dispersion in the urban areas.

Refugees arrive in Canada with settlement challenges different from those faced by other immigrants, including a higher risk of poor health. This study reports hospitalization rates for the three fiscal years from 2006/2007 through 2008/2009 for immigrants who arrived during the 1980-to-2006 period, with a focus on three refugee groups.Information from two linked databases was used to estimate age-standardized hospitalization rates (ASHRs) per 10,000 population aged 30 or older for all causes (excluding pregnancy) and for leading causes, by immigrant category and by refugee subcategory. The analysis focused on refugees from Poland, Vietnam and the Middle East, whose hospitalization rates were compared with those of the Canadian-born population and/or economic class immigrants from the same areas.Immigrants aged 30 or older, including refugees, had significantly lower all-cause ASHRs than did the Canadian-born population. All-cause ASHRs were 470 per 10,000 for immigrants overall and 494 for refugees, compared with 891 for the Canadian-born. Of the three source areas, immigrants and refugees from Vietnam had lower ASHRs. The circulatory disease-specific ASHR for government-assisted refugees from the Middle East was similar to that of the Canadian-born population (142 and 158, respectively). Except for those from Poland, refugees typically had higher ASHRs than did their economic class counterparts.Refugees, like other immigrants, generally had lower hospitalization rates than did the Canadian-born population, but some subgroups were particularly susceptible to hospitalization for specific chronic diseases.

Urban greenery especially trees has been identified as one of the most effective measures for urban climate moderation through the mechanism of evaporative cooling and shading. For subtropical high-density cities like Hong Kong, intense heat stress arises from the compact urban form, poor ventilation, and the high percentage of impervious urban cover. Thus, concerted actions are being taken to harness the cooling potential of urban greenery for improved microclimate. However, the cooling effects of urban greenery vary based on multiple factors, including background climates, urban morphology, anthropogenic heat emission, vegetation types and quantity, etc. This study aims at quantifying and comparing the cooling efficiency of different urban greenery coverage for a typical residential neighbourhood in Hong Kong. The questions guiding our research are: what is the relationship between tree coverage and ambient environment, including air temperature and thermal comfort during a typical summer day in the selected neighbourhood? To achieve this objective, we employed a previously validated ENVImet model setting of a typical summer day to conducted parametric studies of cooling benefit of variable tree coverage ratio from 0 to 30% at the interval of 2% on a typical summer day. The results verified the greenery had a higher cooling potential during period of maximum temperature than the whole diurnal time, 1 °C and almost 0.8 °C respectively for air temperature. This study also showed that increasing greenery coverage indeed lowers diurnal temperatures, but this relationship is logarithmic instead of linear. The ratio of change in cooling effects to greenery increase and then decreased gradually. Between the coverage ratio of 8%-35%, the cooling potential would be underestimated in a linear relationship. Greenery measures may lead to ineffective results if greening principles have not been comprehensive understood, such as greenery abundance, composition and types. The present study allows urban planners and managers to understand more in greenery amount for urban micro-climate in high-density cities.

This study examines the spatial-temporal changes of land cover and the surface urban heat island (SUHI) effect in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region from 2000 to 2015. The Local Climate Zone (LCZ) concept is used, given its standard but comprehensive classification scheme designed for urban climate studies. Firstly, historical LCZ maps of the PRD region were generated using the World Urban Database and Access Portal Tools (WUDAPT) protocol. Secondly, summer mean land surface temperature (LST) during daytime and night-time was retrieved from remote sensing data to analyze the SUHI. Thirdly, the correspondence between the spatial-temporal patterns of LCZ and LST were explored. The results show that urbanization in this region comprises transformation from natural land covers to built types and conversion in the built up, in particular densification and vertical enhancement of existing urban types. The LST in the region increased in general but the spatial pattern of LST increase is affected by the land cover change. LCZ 6 (open low-rise) and LCZ 8 (large low-rise) show the greatest increase in LST. LCZ 4 (open high-rise) and LCZ 8 are the two dominant LCZs in high SUHI zone and LCZ 8 keeps growing as the most principal LCZ type.

Background: Immigrants, a fast-growing population in Canada, score below the national average in health literacy, but the reasons behind the low scores are largely unknown. Also, there is a need to understand the long-term impact of immigration by examining health literacy by generational status. Objective: To examine health literacy differentials in Canada, comparing immigrants and non-immigrants; as well as immigrant sub-groups by their region of origin, recency of arrival and generational status. Methods: A cross-sectional multi-stage representative sample of 22,818 respondents from the Canadian component of the 2003 International Adult Literacy and Skills survey. Data were collected in the home of each respondent. We used descriptive statistics and logistic regression in this study. Results: Fewer immigrants (24%) than non-immigrants (44%) had the requisite health literacy level. After controlling for selected factors, health literacy was still significantly lower for immigrants compared to non-immigrants (OR = 0.51; 95% CI = 0.37 – 0.70). For the immigrant sub-groups and by generations, initial differences that were observed, disappeared after controlling for selected factors. Overall, health literacy was associated with economic, education, and literacy-related factors, but the association with literacy practices at home and at work was stronger for the immigrants than the non-immigrants. Conclusion: Education and literacy practices at home and at work are important determinants of the population’s health literacy; however, education is more likely to be associated with acquisition, while literacy practices are more likely associated with maintenance of health literacy. This adds to our understanding of the factors associated with health literacy, by immigrant and generational status, and shows how different segments of the population in Canada process health information.

Understanding how greenery can improve outdoor thermal comfort is important in downtown planning. This article presents a simulation approach to investigate the cooling effect of downtown greenery on the urban microclimate, primarily air temperature and solar radiation, and therefore pedestrian thermal comfort during summertime in Hong Kong. The numerical simulation software of ENVI-met was used to generate microclimate data for a downtown development site with and without greening design scenarios. Two types of scenarios were tested, one being 50% of tree coverage and the other being 30% of grass coverage with modified building design. The simulation results were transformed into geographic information system (GIS)-supported format using self-developed computer programs. Another computer module was developed to assess pedestrian thermal comfort based on the human–biometeorological index of physiological equivalent temperature (PET) within a GIS framework. Thermal comfort maps were generated accordingly. ...

Objective There are 2 major forms of diabetes mellitus: types 1 and 2. A major limitation of most current population-based diabetes surveillance systems is the classification of diabetes types. Our objective was to examine the concordance of self-reported diabetes type with a previously developed classification algorithm, using a nationally representative survey sample. Methods Self-reported data were available from 2 544 adults with self-reported diabetes, aged ≥20 years and older, who responded to the diabetes component of the 2011 Survey of Living with Chronic Diseases in Canada. We examined the concordance of self-reported diabetes type with an algorithm based on self-reported, but objective, respondent characteristics, such as age of diagnosis and treatment patterns. Concordance was measured using kappa coefficients. Sensitivity, specificity and positive and negative predictive values were calculated using the algorithm as the reference “standard.” Results Approximately 11% of the estimated population did not self-report diabetes type; almost all of these respondents would be classified as having type 2 diabetes by the algorithm. Of those self-reporting diabetes type, we found moderate overall agreement between the algorithm and self-reported type (kappa, 0.52; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.52 to 0.53). Perfect agreement was noted in the youngest age group (kappa, 1.0; 95% CI, 1.0-1.0) but agreement was poor for the oldest age group (kappa, 0.20; 95% CI, 0.19 to 0.20). Conclusions An algorithm based on self-reported, objective characteristics related to diabetes diagnosis and treatment patterns may have the potential to overcome limitations of simple self-report diabetes type for the classification of diabetes type in older adults.

The effects of climate change on air temperature are often described at a global scale as described by the near-surface air temperature on annual basis. As people are intrinsically affected by local climate, it is important to describe climatic variations on regional to local scales in order to provide information to government authorities and associated parties to assist urban planning and design for adaptation measures in the future. The present study aims to extend the past temperature record of designated meteorological stations in Hong Kong using regression techniques in order to supplement the understanding of past climatic conditions at district level where observational records are generally lacking. Warming trends are generally observed and the rate of warming is particularly observed in rural stations. Such a trend is associated with land conversion into concrete surface in surrounding areas and reduction in vegetation cover. Cooling was experienced in the last decade because of the cease of urbanization and the canyon effect present in highly compacted urban environment. Findings of the present study contribute to the understanding of the effect of climate change on areas with various land use and provide baseline conditions for temperature projection of future climate change scenarios. Such information will be useful to the incorporation of microclimatic conditions into the urban planning and design framework, especially for potential development in country areas and redevelopment of inner urban areas in the future.

Recent temperature projections for urban areas have only been able to reflect the expected change due to greenhouse-induced warming, with little attempt to predict urbanisation effects. This research examines temperature changes due to both global warming and urbanisation independently and applies them differentially to urban and rural areas over a sub-tropical city, Hong Kong. The effect of global warming on temperature is estimated by regressing IPCC data from eight Global Climate Models against the background temperature recorded at a rural climate station. Results suggest a mean background temperature increase of 0.67 °C by 2039. To model temperature changes for different degrees of urbanization, long-term temperature records along with a measureable urbanisation parameter, plot ratio surrounding different automatic weather stations (AWS) were used. Models representing daytime and nighttime respectively were developed, and a logarithmic relationship between the rate of temperature change and plot ratio (degree of urbanisation) is observed. Baseline air temperature patterns over Hong Kong for 2009 were derived from two ASTER thermal satellite images, for summer daytime and nighttime respectively. Dynamic raster modeling was employed to project temperatures to 2039 in 10-year intervals on a per-pixel basis according to the degree of urbanization predicted. Daytime and nighttime temperatures in the highly urbanized areas are expected to rise by ca. 2 °C by 2039. Validation by projecting observed temperature trends at AWS, gave low average RMS errors of 0.19 °C for daytime and 0.14 °C for nighttime, and suggests the reliability of the method.

There is a need to create sustainable urban development and quality living environments for the growing urban populations of high-density cities. Sustainable urban planning of high-density cities from the urban climatic point of view is a topical issue for city planners and policy makers. However, the application of urban climatic knowledge has only led to low-impact urban planning decision-making. This is especially true in high-density cities in developing countries. Thus, there is an urgent need to seek ways to quickly collate urban climatic information for planning in a format that is user-friendly for planners. This study has identified ways to promote the use of urban climatic knowledge in planning. By utilizing readily-available data, the paper introduces a method that focuses on urban planning using an urban climatic map (UCMap). A UCMap provides a visual and spatial information platform for the planner-friendly Geographical Information System (GIS). By focusing on Kaohsiung, Taiwan, the study first defines the urban climatic issues in the area. It then introduces the key methodology of urban climatic mapping and elaborates on general urban-climatic-based planning advice for planners using a UCMap. Lastly, it identifies sensitive areas and provides planning recommendations that can be easily tested and applied by city planners. The critical importance of urban greenery and coverage, urban air paths and open spaces, water bodies and rivers, and building morphology and layout have been highlighted visually and spatially for planners.

Hong Kong is one of the most densely built-up and populated cities in the world. An adequate air ventilation at pedestrian level would ease the thermal stress in its humid subtropical climate, but the high-density city severely reduces the natural ventilation. This case study investigates pedestrian level ventilation in two neighbourhoods in Kowloon, downtown Hong Kong using the parallelized large-eddy-simulation (LES) model PALM. The LES technique is chosen here for a city quarter scale pedestrian comfort study despite of its high computational cost. The aims of the paper are a) to get a comprehensive overview of pedestrian level ventilation and a better understanding of the ventilation processes in downtown Hong Kong, b) to test the LES technique on this urban scale compared to the wind tunnel and c) to investigate how numerical/physical parameters influence ventilation. This case study is restricted to neutral stratification in order to allow a direct comparison with the wind tunnel. A sensitivity study quantifies the dependence of site-averaged ventilation on numerical and physical parameters and determines an appropriate urban LES set-up for two 1 km2 neighbourhoods in Kowloon (Tsim Sha Tsui, Mong Kok) that are investigated for prevailing E and SW wind. The results reveal the critical dependence of ventilation on the urban morphology. Air paths, street orientations, ground coverage, sites fronting the water, inter connectivity of spaces, building podium size and building heights can all affect the pedestrian wind environment. Isolated tall buildings may have a pronounced impact on ventilation both locally and downstream.

In sub-tropical city of Hong Kong where summer is hot and humid, the usage of outdoor spaces is often hindered due to thermal discomfort. In order to improve the thermal comfort of the outdoor environment and to make urban outdoor spaces delightful places for people to use and enjoy, better understanding of the thermal perception of people is needed. This paper presents the results of an outdoor thermal comfort study conducted in Hong Kong. The findings of the study reveal that air temperature, wind speed and solar radiation intensity are influential factors in determining the thermal sensation of people outdoor. Based on our analysis, the neutral physiological equivalent temperature (PET) in summer in Hong Kong is around 28 °C. Under shaded condition, a wind speed of 0.9–1.3 m/s is needed for a person in light clothing to achieve neutral thermal sensation in an urban environment. This understanding can contribute towards establishing wind performance standards for thermal comfort in hot and humid tropical and sub-tropical cities.

Extreme hot weather events are likely to increase under future climate change, and it is exacerbated in urban areas due to the complex urban settings. It causes excess mortality due to prolonged exposure to such extreme heat. However, there is lack of universal definition of prolonged heat or heat wave, which leads to inadequacies of associated risk preparedness. Previous studies focused on estimating temperature-mortality relationship based on temperature thresholds for assessing heat-related health risks but only several studies investigated the association between types of prolonged heat and excess mortality. However, most studies focused on one or a few isolated heat waves, which cannot demonstrate typical scenarios that population has experienced. In addition, there are limited studies on the difference between daytime and nighttime temperature, resulting in insufficiency to conclude the effect of prolonged heat. In sub-tropical high-density cities where prolonged heat is common in summer, it is important to obtain a comprehensive understanding of prolonged heat for a complete assessment of heat-related health risks. In this study, six types of prolonged heat were examined by using a time-stratified analysis. We found that more consecutive hot nights contribute to higher mortality risk while the number of consecutive hot days does not have significant association with excess mortality. For a day after five consecutive hot nights, there were 7.99% [7.64%, 8.35%], 7.74% [6.93%, 8.55%], and 8.14% [7.38%, 8.88%] increases in all-cause, cardiovascular, and respiratory mortality, respectively. Non-consecutive hot days or nights are also found to contribute to short-term mortality risk. For a 7-day-period with at least five non-consecutive hot days and nights, there was 15.61% [14.52%, 16.70%] increase in all-cause mortality at lag 0-1, but only -2.00% [-2.83%, -1.17%] at lag 2-3. Differences in the temperature-mortality relationship caused by hot days and hot nights imply the need to categorize prolonged heat for public health surveillance. Findings also contribute to potential improvement to existing heat-health warning system.

Urban air quality serves as an important function of the quality of urban life. Land use regression (LUR) modelling of air quality is essential for conducting health impacts assessment but more challenging in mountainous high-density urban scenario due to the complexities of the urban environment. In this study, a total of 21 LUR models are developed for seven kinds of air pollutants (gaseous air pollutants CO, NO2, NOx, O3, SO2 and particulate air pollutants PM2.5, PM10) with reference to three different time periods (summertime, wintertime and annual average of 5-year long-term hourly monitoring data from local air quality monitoring network) in Hong Kong. Under the mountainous high-density urban scenario, we improved the traditional LUR modelling method by incorporating wind availability information into LUR modelling based on surface geomorphometrical analysis. As a result, 269 independent variables were examined to develop the LUR models by using the "ADDRESS" independent variable selection method and stepwise multiple linear regression (MLR). Cross validation has been performed for each resultant model. The results show that wind-related variables are included in most of the resultant models as statistically significant independent variables. Compared with the traditional method, a maximum increase of 20% was achieved in the prediction performance of annual averaged NO2 concentration level by incorporating wind-related variables into LUR model development.

Although immigrants tend to be healthier than the Canadian-born population when they arrive, subgroups, notably different immigration categories, may differ in health and health care use. Data limitations have meant the research has seldom focused on category of immigrant-economic, family or refugee. A newly linked database has made it possible to study acute care hospitalization by immigration category and source region.The Immigrant Landing File-Hospital Discharge Abstract Linked Database (n = 2.6 million) was used to derive sex-specific crude and age-standardized hospitalization rates (ASHRs) per 10,000 population for all-cause and leading causes of hospitalization during the 2006/2007-to-2008/2009 period.Economic class immigrants had lower all-cause ASHRs than did their family class or refugee counterparts. Male refugees had high ASHRs overall and for circulatory diseases, digestive diseases, injury, and cancer. Female differences by immigrant class were less pronounced. All-cause ASHRs (excluding pregnancy) rose with years since arrival in Canada for male and female immigrants. Immigrants from East Asia had the lowest ASHRs; those from the United States, the highest.Although hospital use is an imperfect indicator of health status, this study supports an initial healthy immigrant effect and its subsequent decline. Marked differences emerged among immigrant subgroups with some, notably refugees and immigrants from the United States, having significantly higher hospitalization rates overall and for leading causes, compared with other groups.

Background: The recent increase in the incidence of primary liver cancer in Canada has been attributed to a higher proportion of immigrants from countries endemic for hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV). We examined hospital discharges for liver disease in Canada, focusing on those for all liver-related diseases, HBV infection, HCV infection and primary liver cancer, by 3 immigration-related variables: immigration status, duration of residence in Canada and risk level of the source country. Methods: We calculated annualized crude and age-standardized rates of a hospital stay in Canada for HBV infection, HCV infection, primary liver cancer and all liver-related diseases using data from the 2006 Canadian census (long form) linked to the Canadian Institute for Health Information Discharge Abstract Database for fiscal years 2006/07 to 2008/09. We estimated the odds of a hospital stay using logistic regression for the 3 immigration-related variables, adjusting for sociodemographic indicators. Results: Immigrants were less likely than Canadian-born residents to be discharged with a diagnosis of any liver-related condition (odds ratio [OR] 0.83, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.78–0.89); however, they were more likely to be discharged with a diagnosis of HBV infection (OR 2.02, 95% CI 1.57–2.60) and primary liver cancer (OR 1.43, 95% CI 1.22–1.68). There was a clear association between a hospital stay for HBV infection and immigration from HBV-endemic countries (OR 5.15, 95% CI 3.87–6.84) and between a stay for HCV infection and immigration from HCV-endemic countries (OR 2.98, 95% CI 1.74–5.11). Adjustment for low income status and urban residence did not change the results. Interpretation: Although the odds of a liver-related hospital stay were lower among immigrants than among those born in Canada, immigrants from countries at high risk for HBV infection, HCV infection and primary liver cancer were more likely than Canadian-born residents to have a corresponding liver-related hospital stay. These findings emphasize the importance of identifying immigrants with hepatitis and engaging them in care to prevent complications.

We demonstrate a one-step, surfactant-free method to prepare gold (Au) nanostructures using a synthesized aniline (ANI) derivative N-(3-amidino)-aniline (NAAN) as a reducing agent. By simply mixing NAAN with a Au precursor, raspberry-like Au particles (RSPs) were formed. The presence of Ag(+) resulted in the formation of Au nanoflowers (AuNFs). The size and shape of the AuNFs can be tuned by the reaction conditions such as the NAAN/HAuCl4 ratio, the temperature and the solvent composition. Under the same reaction conditions, bowling-pin-like particles (BPLPs) were reported for the first time using commercial ANI as a reducing agent. The AuNFs exhibited good ability to oxidize peroxidase substrate 3, 3', 5, 5'-tetramethylbenzidine (TMB) by H2O2, allowing them as a peroxidase mimetic.

To extend directed self-assembly (DSA) of poly(styrene-b-methyl methacrylate) (PS- b -PMMA) for higher resolution, placement accuracy and potentially improved pattern line edge roughness (LER), we have developed a next-generation material platform of organic high-χ block copolymers (“HC series”, AZEMBLY TM EXP PME-3000 series). The new material platform has a built-in orientation control mechanism which enables block copolymer domains to vertically selforient without topcoat/additive or delicate solvent vapor annealing. Furthermore, sub-10 nm lines and spaces (L/S) patterning by two major chemoepitaxy DSA, LiNe and SMART TM processes, was successfully implemented on 12” wafer substrates by using the PME-3000 lamellar series. The results revealed that the new material platform is compatible with the existing PS- b -PMMA-based chemical prepatterns and standard protocols. We also introduced the built-in orientation control strategy to the conventional PS- b -PMMA system, producing a new generation of PS-b-PMMA materials with facile orientation control. The modified PS- b -PMMA (m-PS- b -PMMA) performed LiNe flow DSA yielding a comparable CD process window with improved LER/LWR/SWR after the L/S patterns were transferred into a Si substrate.

While immigrants tend to be healthier especially when they first arrived, this healthy immigrant effect may not apply to vaccine-preventable diseases (VPD) especially among immigrants from countries without vaccination programs. There is therefore an important information gap regarding differential health outcome and hospitalization usage by immigrant status, landing cohort, world region and immigrant category. This study focused on acute-care hospitalization, and used two recently linked population-based databases in Canada, namely, the 2006 Census linked to the Hospital Discharge Abstract (DAD), and the Immigrant Landing File linked to the DAD (ILF-DAD) to estimate crude and age-standardized VPD-related hospitalization rates (ASHR) by the above-mentioned immigrant characteristics to be compared with that for overall Canadian-born reference population. Based on the 2006 Census-DAD linked database, VPD-specific ASHR for overall immigrants was significantly higher than that for the Canadian-born population (1.6, 95% CI, 1.5, 1.6 vs 1.2, 95% CI, 1.1, 1.2, respectively). VPD-specific ASHRs by landing cohorts also increased with years in Canada (e.g. 1.4, 95% CI, 1.3, 1.5 for the 1990-2006 cohort, and 1.6, 95% CI, 1.5, 1.7 for the pre-1980 cohort). Based on the 1980-2006 ILF-DAD, the VPD-specific ASHRs were highest among Southeast and East Asians (e.g. 2.1, 95% CI, 1.9, 2.3 for East Asia). Compared with the Canadian-born, economic class immigrants overall had significantly lower ASHR (1.4, 95% CI 1.2, 1.6), but the low rate was mainly due to the dependants (spouse or children) within this class (0.8, 95% CI 0.6, 1.1). Both family and refugee categories had significantly higher ASHRs (1.3, 95% CI, 1.2, 1.5 and 1.7, 95% CI, 1.4, 2.1, respectively), especially among those refugees assisted by government (2.0, 95% CI, 1.4, 2.6). With increasing immigration, changing source countries and emerging needs for refugee settlements in Canada, these newly linked datasets help to monitor VPD-related hospitalization pattern among Canadian immigrants.

KL Lau PhD, ENgPhD and JZ He PhDSchool of Architecture, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin NT, Hong KongSAR, ChinaReceived 14 October 2011; Revised 20 April 2012; Accepted 1 May 2012Appropriate solar access is considered to be important to residents’ health,comfort and daily living. In the past few decades, guidelines and standards havebeen formulated for the provision of sunlight in low-density housing. However, insub-tropical, high-density housing like that found in Hong Kong, relevantguidelines and standards are generally lacking. At the same time, better provisionof sunlight to such housing has become a matter of concern. Residents’preference for solar access is very important to the formulation of standards forsolar access and daylighting, as well as urban planning and building design. Thispaper presents the results of questionnaire surveys regarding residents’ prefer-ences for solar access in terms of timing, duration and location. Computersimulation provides information on the actual sunlight environment of the visitedhouseholds. Policy-makers, as well as planners and architects, should take thefindings into account when establishing appropriate guidelines and standards forhigh-density tropical cities like Hong Kong.

The New Countryside Construction has been launched in China several years. In one hand, the amount of building construction in rural area in China is increasing rapidly. In some areas, vernacular buildings were abandoned because of their relatively poor performance of durability, seismic behavior, construction speed, and so on. But simply copying the conventional urban construction model is not a sustainable solution for diversified situations in rural area. On the other hand, in lots of the remote rural areas, the public facilities of villages are not convenient and perfect enough, because the transportation costs is much higher than construction costs. To solve these problems, the Wu Zhi Qiao (Bridge to China) Charitable Foundation organized a series of studies and construction practice in rural area of west China. Among them, gabion bridge and anti-seismic rammed earth house are two of the representative high-science and low-tech solutions for rural China. This paper will present how the local materials applied in rural areas in gabion bridge and anti-seismic rammed earth house projects, and discuss the performance and sustainability of these high-science and low-tech solutions.

SUMMARY Background: Rising healthcare costs will increasingly require policy-makers to make difficult decisions based on the potential benefits and costs of new healthcare interventions. The Canadian Partnership Against Cancer commissioned the development of the Cancer Risk Management Model as a tool to aid such decisions. This computer microsimulation model projects future population health and economic impacts of cancer control programs in Canada. Lung cancer was the first simulation module to be developed and was selected because of the magnitude of lung cancer burden in Canada and recent screening and treatment interventions that require policy decisions. Methods: The model simulates one individual life at a time, from birth to death, taking account of Canadian demographic and labor force characteristics, risk factor exposures and health histories, and then combines this information from all the simulated lives to produce aggregate measures of health outcomes for the Canadian population as a whole or for particular subpopulations. The direct costs of medical care can be estimated, as well as lost earnings and impacts on tax revenues. Results: The lung module is available through the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer website to registered users where structured scenarios can be explored for their projected impacts. Conclusion: The Cancer Risk Management Model for lung cancer is now available via the internet to assist healthcare policy analysts, researchers and decision-makers in their work.

Outdoor spaces are important to sustainable cities because they accommodate pedestrian traffic and outdoor activities, and contribute greatly to urban livability and vitality. In the global context of climate change, outdoor spaces that provide a pleasurable thermal comfort experience for pedestrians effectively improve the quality of urban living. The influence of thermal comfort on outdoor activities is a complex issue comprising both climatic and behavioral aspects; however, current investigations lack a general framework for assessment. This paper presents a review of research over the past decade on the behavioral aspects of outdoor thermal comfort. The article focuses on perceptions of outdoor thermal comfort and the use of outdoor space in the context of urban planning. We further discuss a general framework for assessing outdoor thermal comfort based on behavioral aspects and the need for predicting tools in the design and planning of outdoor thermal comfort.

Designing natural ventilation systems for quality urban living in high-density cities such as Hong Kong is never an easy task. Since 1903, Hong Kong has been tackling this issue. The intensification of urbanization in the last 100 years has meant that urban ventilation is compromised. For sub-tropical living, especially in the summer months, air flow in interior spaces can greatly assist thermal comfort. To come up with an ideal design, both the outdoor and the indoor wind environment must be optimized. Since 2003, the Hong Kong SAR Government has commissioned various studies and has begun to implement policies to address the issue. These studies are ongoing as of today. However, continuous research and monitoring are still needed.