✨美國在台協會 (AIT) 及駐美國台北經濟文化代表處 (TECRO) 於本週盛大啟動「美台教育倡議」！

AIT處長酈英傑表示：「『美台教育倡議』的宗旨是要讓更多人有機會接觸到中英文語言教學課程，同時捍衛學術自由。更具體地說，這項倡議將特別凸顯台灣在為美國及世界各地的人們，提供中文教學方面的重要角色，並力求擴大台灣在這方面的影響力。…世界各地的大學都已經關閉了孔子學院，因為它們在中國的審查制度及惡意影響力活動方面，扮演了一定的角色。但是美國及國際學生，對於學習中文，仍然抱有很濃厚的興趣。面對全世界對學習中文的強烈興趣，台灣可以、而且也應該扮演重要角色。」

本週的「美台教育倡議」邀請了美國國務院、美國教育部代表及台灣相關部會代表共同參與線上對話，討論如何擴展中英文教學的合作，線上對話成果豐碩。隨後雙邊也簽署了一份合作備忘錄，詳列美台在教育合作上的共同目標。

✅處長致詞稿: https://bit.ly/37vyHGt
✅新聞稿: https://bit.ly/3lwSg6l
✅備忘錄: https://bit.ly/39Crs2c
✅背景資料: https://bit.ly/2KWUwqR

✨This week, AIT and TECRO launched the U.S.-Taiwan Education Initiative!

As AIT Director Christensen explained: “The Initiative is aimed at expanding access to Chinese and English language instruction, while safeguarding academic freedom. Specifically, the Initiative will highlight and enhance Taiwan’s role in providing Chinese language instruction to Americans and to people around the world. …Universities around the world have been closing Confucius Institutes because of their role in censorship and malign influence campaigns by the People’s Republic of China (PRC). However, interest in Chinese language learning remains strong among American and international students. Taiwan can and should play a key role in addressing that interest.”

This week’s launch included a virtual dialogue by representatives from the U.S. Departments of State and Education and their Taiwan counterparts to discuss ways to expand cooperation on Chinese and English language instruction. It also included the signing of an MOU laying out our shared goals in this area.

✅Director’s remarks: https://bit.ly/3lzYfrh
✅Press release: https://bit.ly/36z7qUx
✅MOU: https://bit.ly/39Crs2c
✅Fact sheet: https://bit.ly/2KWUwqR

今早為Asian Medical Students Association Hong Kong (AMSAHK)的新一屆執行委員會就職典禮作致詞分享嘉賓，題目為「疫情中的健康不公平」。
感謝他們的熱情款待以及為整段致詞拍了影片。以下我附上致詞的英文原稿：

It's been my honor to be invited to give the closing remarks for the Inauguration Ceremony for the incoming executive committee of the Asian Medical Students' Association Hong Kong (AMSAHK) this morning. A video has been taken for the remarks I made regarding health inequalities during the COVID-19 pandemic (big thanks to the student who withstood the soreness of her arm for holding the camera up for 15 minutes straight), and here's the transcript of the main body of the speech that goes with this video:

//The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, continues to be rampant around the world since early 2020, resulting in more than 55 million cases and 1.3 million deaths worldwide as of today. (So no! It’s not a hoax for those conspiracy theorists out there!) A higher rate of incidence and deaths, as well as worse health-related quality of life have been widely observed in the socially disadvantaged groups, including people of lower socioeconomic position, older persons, migrants, ethnic minority and communities of color, etc. While epidemiologists and scientists around the world are dedicated in gathering scientific evidence on the specific causes and determinants of the health inequalities observed in different countries and regions, we can apply the Social Determinants of Health Conceptual Framework developed by the World Health Organization team led by the eminent Prof Sir Michael Marmot, world’s leading social epidemiologist, to understand and delineate these social determinants of health inequalities related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to this framework, social determinants of health can be largely categorized into two types – 1) the lower stream, intermediary determinants, and 2) the upper stream, structural and macro-environmental determinants. For the COVID-19 pandemic, we realized that the lower stream factors may include material circumstances, such as people’s living and working conditions. For instance, the nature of the occupations of these people of lower socioeconomic position tends to require them to travel outside to work, i.e., they cannot work from home, which is a luxury for people who can afford to do it. This lack of choice in the location of occupation may expose them to greater risk of infection through more transportation and interactions with strangers. We have also seen infection clusters among crowded places like elderly homes, public housing estates, and boarding houses for foreign domestic helpers. Moreover, these socially disadvantaged people tend to have lower financial and social capital – it can be observed that they were more likely to be deprived of personal protective equipment like face masks and hand sanitizers, especially during the earlier days of the pandemic. On the other hand, the upper stream, structural determinants of health may include policies related to public health, education, macroeconomics, social protection and welfare, as well as our governance… and last, but not least, our culture and values. If the socioeconomic and political contexts are not favorable to the socially disadvantaged, their health and well-being will be disproportionately affected by the pandemic. Therefore, if we, as a society, espouse to address and reduce the problem of health inequalities, social determinants of health cannot be overlooked in devising and designing any public health-related strategies, measures and policies.

Although a higher rate of incidence and deaths have been widely observed in the socially disadvantaged groups, especially in countries with severe COVID-19 outbreaks, this phenomenon seems to be less discussed and less covered by media in Hong Kong, where the disease incidence is relatively low when compared with other countries around the world. Before the resurgence of local cases in early July, local spread of COVID-19 was sporadic and most cases were imported. In the earlier days of the pandemic, most cases were primarily imported by travelers and return-students studying overseas, leading to a minor surge between mid-March and mid-April of 874 new cases. Most of these cases during Spring were people who could afford to travel and study abroad, and thus tended to be more well-off. Therefore, some would say the expected social gradient in health impact did not seem to exist in Hong Kong, but may I remind you that, it is only the case when we focus on COVID-19-specific incidence and mortality alone. But can we really deduce from this that COVID-19-related health inequality does not exist in Hong Kong? According to the Social Determinants of Health Framework mentioned earlier, the obvious answer is “No, of course not.” And here’s why…

In addition to the direct disease burden, the COVID-19 outbreak and its associated containment measures (such as economic lockdown, mandatory social distancing, and change of work arrangements) could have unequal wider socioeconomic impacts on the general population, especially in regions with pervasive existing social inequalities. Given the limited resources and capacity of the socioeconomically disadvantaged to respond to emergency and adverse events, their general health and well-being are likely to be unduly and inordinately affected by the abrupt changes in their daily economic and social conditions, like job loss and insecurity, brought about by the COVID-19 outbreak and the corresponding containment and mitigation measures of which the main purpose was supposedly disease prevention and health protection at the first place. As such, focusing only on COVID-19 incidence or mortality as the outcomes of concern to address health inequalities may leave out important aspects of life that contributes significantly to people’s health. Recently, my research team and I collaborated with Sir Michael Marmot in a Hong Kong study, and found that the poor people in Hong Kong fared worse in every aspects of life than their richer counterparts in terms of economic activity, personal protective equipment, personal hygiene practice, as well as well-being and health after the COVID-19 outbreak. We also found that part of the observed health inequality can be attributed to the pandemic and its related containment measures via people’s concerns over their own and their families’ livelihood and economic activity. In other words, health inequalities were contributed by the pandemic even in a city where incidence is relatively low through other social determinants of health that directly concerned the livelihood and economic activity of the people. So in this study, we confirmed that focusing only on the incident and death cases as the outcomes of concern to address health inequalities is like a story half-told, and would severely truncate and distort the reality.

Truth be told, health inequality does not only appear after the pandemic outbreak of COVID-19, it is a pre-existing condition in countries and regions around the world, including Hong Kong. My research over the years have consistently shown that people in lower socioeconomic position tend to have worse physical and mental health status. Nevertheless, precisely because health inequality is nothing new, there are always voices in our society trying to dismiss the problem, arguing that it is only natural to have wealth inequality in any capitalistic society. However, in reckoning with health inequalities, we need to go beyond just figuring out the disparities or differences in health status between the poor and the rich, and we need to raise an ethically relevant question: are these inequalities, disparities and differences remediable? Can they be fixed? Can we do something about them? If they are remediable, and we can do something about them but we haven’t, then we’d say these inequalities are ultimately unjust and unfair. In other words, a society that prides itself in pursuing justice must, and I say must, strive to address and reduce these unfair health inequalities. Borrowing the words from famed sociologist Judith Butler, “the virus alone does not discriminate,” but “social and economic inequality will make sure that it does.” With COVID-19, we learn that it is not only the individuals who are sick, but our society. And it’s time we do something about it.

Thank you very much!//

Please join me in congratulating the incoming executive committee of AMSAHK and giving them the best wishes for their future endeavor!

Roger Chung, PhD
Assistant Professor, CUHK JC School of Public Health and Primary Care, @CUHK Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong 香港中文大學 - CUHK
Associate Director, CUHK Institute of Health Equity

【#來自台灣的祝福 ❤️】

#台灣模式 已被世界公認是成功抗疫方程式
這是你我和各領域職人默默付出的成果✨

#魔法部 希望與大家分享這支影片
向各國同樣奮力抗疫的同業人員加油打氣💪🏻
也要告訴全世界
無論是有形的物資、無形的know-how
#台灣 有意願也有能力成為 #全球防疫最佳夥伴 👊🏻

落實聯合國 #永續發展目標：

#SDG3 確保健康及促進各年齡層的福祉
#SDG17 強化永續發展執行方法及活化永續發展全球夥伴關係 🌐

#UNGlobalGoals #TaiwanCanHelp
#不遺漏任何人
#台灣能幫忙
#台灣正在幫忙

Taiwan’s clear success in containing #COVID19 is a result of the joint efforts of professionals across different fields. By sharing this film, we hope to cheer on their counterparts across the world. We want to show #Taiwan’s determination to be the best partner for the world in #PandemicPrevention. #TaiwanCanHelp and #TaiwanIsHelping in the #UN efforts to combat #coronavirus and in realizing the UN #SustainableDevelopmentGoals! To afford the world the best protection, #MasksFromTaiwan have been shipped around the world and we’re still in production! We believe this is the true spirit of the theme of this year’s UN General Assembly which opens September 15 this year: “The Future We Want, the UN We Need: Reaffirming our Collective Commitment to #Multilateralism.” We want a future in which #Taiwan can share its expertise and resources with other countries in the most effective way possible, a future in which Taiwan is granted a meaningful role in the #UN and its institutions.
#SDG3 #Health #Wellbeing #SDG17 #PartnershipsForTheGoals #LeaveNoOneBehind #WHO #ICAO

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