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

➥目前羥氯喹(hydroxychloroquine)和阿奇黴素(azithromycin)被視為用來治療新冠肺炎病患的可能藥物，但缺乏臨床證據支持其是否有療效。


Rosenberg博士和其研究團隊針對紐約大都會地區1438位因新冠肺炎住院的病患，進行觀察性研究，結果指出參與個案平均年齡為63歲， 60%為男性，此研究族群感染新冠肺炎的致死率為20%，1438位新冠肺炎的住院病患中，735位同時使用羥氯喹和阿奇黴素，271位使用羥氯喹，211位使用阿奇黴素，221位的病患兩種藥物都沒有使用。


與兩種藥物都沒有使用者相比，三組於致死率方面均無統計上顯著差異；此外，同時使用羥氯喹和阿奇黴素者，其心臟停止方面的風險比兩種藥物都沒有使用病患要高，並具統計上顯著差異。


但單獨使用羥氯喹或阿奇黴素者，在心臟停止方面均無統計上顯著差異。因此羥氯喹或阿奇黴素是否能有效治療新冠肺炎病患，需更多臨床資料來證實。(「財團法人國家衛生研究院」蔡慧如博士 摘要整理 ➥http://forum.nhri.org.tw/covid19/virus/j_translate/j967/ )


📋 Association of Treatment With Hydroxychloroquine or Azithromycin With In-Hospital Mortality in Patients With COVID-19 in New York State (2020/05/11)+中文摘要轉譯
■ Author：
Eli S. Rosenberg, Elizabeth M. Dufort, Tomoko Udo, et al.
■ Link：
(JAMA) https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2766117?resultClick=1


🔔豐富的學術文獻資料都在【論壇COVID-19學術專區】
■ http://forum.nhri.org.tw/covid19/


#2019COVID19Academic
衛生福利部
疾病管制署 - 1922防疫達人
疾病管制署
國家衛生研究院-論壇

➥【重點摘要】：新冠肺炎疫情造成全球許多國家的學校停班停課，其中也包含美國在內；Bayham博士和Fenichel博士於2020年4月3日的研究結果指出，學校停課此措施雖可減低學生被新冠肺炎感染的風險，但是卻會造成醫療人員因需在家照顧兒童而曠工，不但導致醫療人力降低，也不會減低新冠肺炎病人的死亡率；因此，建議政府當局須謹慎權衡學校停課對新冠肺炎醫療照護上所造成的得失。(「財團法人國家衛生研究院」蔡慧如博士整理)


📋 Impact of school closures for COVID-19 on the US health-care workforce and net mortality: a modelling study(2020/04/03)+中文摘要轉譯

➥Author：Jude Bayham,Prof Eli P Fenichel
➥Link： The Lancet
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(20)30082-7/fulltext


#2019COVID19Academic
衛生福利部
疾病管制署 - 1922防疫達人
疾病管制署
國家衛生研究院-論壇