The Impact of Habit of Eating Breakfast and Physical Activity on Children Suicidal Behaviour

Introduction: Youth suicide is one of the top three causes of death among age group between 15 and 24 years old. The known risk factors include depression, hopelessness, dysfunctional families, substance abuse, school failure and harassment. However, research reports in relation to the protective factors to prevent adolescent from suicidal attempts are still lacking. The purpose of this study is to detect (if any) the protective effect of physical activity and the habit of eating breakfast on children suicidal attempts. Methods: This study adopted a secondary data analysis approach, in which data was extracted from the 2013 Youth Risk Behaviour Surveillance System to detect the association effect between children's physical activity level and the habit of eating breakfast with suicidal attempts. Results: The increase number of days of physical activity and the habit of eating breakfast were both significantly related to the declining trend in suicidal attempts (p<0.0001). Only the effect of habit of eating breakfast on suicidal behaviour remained a protective factor for suicidal attempts after the adjustment (p<0.001). Conclusions: Our results illustrate that the physical activity has a marginal effect on suicidal attempts among males only. After adjusting other risk factors, the habit of eating breakfast shows a strong effect on preventing children from having suicidal attempt and also suggests a dose effect for the days of eating breakfast. For a child who skips breakfast for a week would have 1.7 higher risk of suicidal attempt compared with another child who eats breakfast every day in a week.published_or_final_versio

The need of policies and legislative changes for tobacco control in Hong Kong: Letter of recommendations to Hong Kong Legislative Council

Recommendations on Anti-smoking Policy in Hong Kong, in response to the discussion on increasing tobacco taxation for the Legislative Council Subcommittee on Public Revenue Protection (Dutiable Commodities) Order 2011published_or_final_versio

Injuries among children 0 to 19 years in Hong Kong

Poster Presentation (Doctor’s Session)BACKGROUND: Injury is one of the major causes of morbidity and mortality among children in Hong Kong. The aim of this study is to contribute to the planning, implementation and evaluation of injury prevention measures in Hong Kong by providing a comprehensive comparison of injury accident and emergency department (AED) attendance rates among 18 districts. METHODS: A retrospective analysis was undertaken by using the traumatic coded AED attendance data of children aged 0 to 19 retrieved from the Hong Kong Hospital Authority database. Focusing on data of 2009, injury rates of intentional and unintentional, and the avoidable injury attendances were calculated at district level. District with the lowest overall injuryrelates AED attendance rate was taken as the reference incident rate for the calculation of excess injury rate for other districts. RESULTS: There is a great variability between the best performing and poorer performing districts in 2009, with the overall AED injury attendance rates up to three times higher in districts with poorer performance. Of all the 18 districts in Hong Kong, 7 districts have injury rates above the mean (4,716 per 100,000) and the top 3 highest overall child injury attendance rates are found in Islands, Sai Kung and Yuen Long. For intentional injury attendance rates, the top three highest are Islands, Yuen Long and Sai Kung. For unintentional injury, Islands, Sai Kung and Yuen Long reported the highest injury rates. CONCLUSION: This study demonstrated a potential tool for monitoring and measuring injury trend. Districts should first aim to lower injury rates below the mean rate and subsequently work towards the lowest district reference rate. Moreover, this can also facilitate the future allocation of resources by identifying areas of strength to be built on and areas of weakness which need improvement, in particular for those newly developed districts

Creating safe playgrounds: a safety promotion approach

Poster Presentation (Doctor’s Session)BACKGROUND: Playground is a common platform for play and recreation, offering children opportunities to run, jump, climb and socialising with other children. In general, playgrounds are not as hazardous as playing on streets; however they still bear high risk of injuries that become alarming worldwide. This study aims to understand playground injuries from a wider perspective by making use of injury data from a hospital injury surveillance system (HISS) and to develop an educational intervention to promote playground safety. METHODS: Sports related injury incidents of children aged 0 to 14 for the period of January 2009-June 2011 were analysed spatially to identify 10 playgrounds with high incidence of injury in Kwai Tsing and Sham Shui Po. Additional selection criteria including location, accessibility and playground size were used to select playgrounds. Site survey observations were conducted in selected playgrounds to evaluate design of playgrounds and environmental factors. Safety hazards and play risks identified in observations were used to develop educational play booths that to induce safe play concepts and enhance supervision through play activities among parents and caregivers. Pre- and post-evaluation questionnaires were used to measure the effect of educational play booth, which aimed at altering parents' supervision behaviour. RESULTS: There were a total of 784 injury incidents of children aged 0 to14 identified, which represented 27% of the two districts' overall injury incidents. The top four play risks which observed in all surveyed playgrounds were play balls or toys on play equipment; play equipment with improper clothing; eating on play equipment; and play on equipment occupied by adults. The use of educational play booth has successfully increased parents' knowledge level as well as attitude towards playground safety within a very short period of time. CONCLUSION: This study has illustrated a systematic method in developing intervention for playground injuries. From the use of HISS data analysed spatially to locate injury hotspots, providing the prerequisite for playground selection that to conduct site survey, and finally making use of site survey findings to develop educational play booth. In view of the heavy burden of playground injury among children, it is advisable to apply the current project's practice in 18 districts of Hong Kong to reduce the risk of injury in playgrounds