Children of 1997 - School of Public Health The University of Hong

“Children of 1997”
Newsletter
Summer 2008
SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH
LI KA SHING FACULTY OF MEDICINE
THE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH
Getting to know our team – Professor Gabriel Leung
Professor
Gabriel Leung
is one of the
principal
investigators of
our “Children
of 1997” birth
cohort here at
the Li Ka Shing
Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong. Recently, he
was appointed to be the first Under
Secretary for Food and Health.
Just like our “Children of 1997”, Professor Leung spent his early years in
Hong Kong, where he studied at Wah
Yan College. He chose to be a medical
doctor, specializing in family practice
and public health, because he wanted a challenging career dedicated
to serving the people of Hong Kong.
However, it is no secret that Professor
Leung’s passions lie not only in medicine but also in music. His recent performances include conducting the
Hong Kong Children’s Symphony Orchestra as part of their Beautiful Sun-
day Concert at the Shenzhen Concert
Hall on July 13th 2008.
Professor Leung says, “Although
I treasure my music, I decided early
on that music would be a hobby
during my free time, and I would
devote my professional work to
helping others through medicine.”
True to his words, Professor Leung has been working hard on the
“Children of 1997” birth cohort. He
says “Research from other birth co-
Professor Leung conducting the Choir Performance at The University of Hong Kong,
Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine
120th Anniversary Dinner
horts based in the West suggests that
the teenage years are a key time influencing the development of many
chronic diseases in adulthood, such
as obesity and cardiovascular diseas-
es. As our children in the cohort are
nearing this important stage of life
our vision for the next couple of years
is to understand how growth at this
crucial time affects young people’s
health in Hong Kong.”
Professor Leung at 11 years!
Favourite food:
Chocolate
Least favourite food:
Cauliflower
Favourite
Colour:
Green
Favourite
school
activity:
Singing
Favourite
Day of the
week:
Monday
11th Birthday Present:
An Atari video game
“On behalf of the whole research team, I would like to say a
word of thanks to all our cohort families and especially to our children. I am thrilled to find
that after more than 10 years almost all the cohort families have stayed in touch with us. The “Children of
1997” birth cohort would not exist if it weren’t for your interest and support and we have been greatly encouraged
by your response. I sincerely hope that our research will produce breakthroughs concerning common diseases here
in Hong Kong that will not only benefit our children’s health today, but their children as well and children
worldwide. May you all have a relaxing summer, and a successful
upcoming school year!”
Have you received your survey yet???
Last month, we
sent you all a “Children of 1997” 2008
Follow-Up Survey
along with a small
gift of a personalised
“Children of 1997”
measuring tape to
help you answer the questions. Did
you receive your questionnaire?
For those of you who have already
returned the questionnaire, thank
you so much! Your response has been
very encouraging and we are very excited about it! In fact, we have already
had questionnaires back from more
than half of you!
For those of you who have yet to
fill out the questionnaire, we would
like to encourage you to do so. Understanding how our children are developing as they move towards the
teenage years may be relevant to their
health for the rest of their lives. Equally important understanding how other family members’ experiences may
affect children’s health is another crucial factor (called epigenetics) that we
have a unique opportunity to examine here in Hong Kong. We hope that
as part of the “Children of 1997” birth
cohort, you will take part in this excit-
ing new step for health here in Hong
Kong by completing the “Children of
1997” 2008 Follow-Up Survey. We
look forward to hearing from you.
If you have not received your questionnaire and measuring tape, please
ring our hotline on 28199924 and we
will send them to you immediately.
“CHILDREN OF 1997”
PAGE 2
“Children of 1997” tell their story
Earlier this year, Lui Pui Ying was one of the “Children of 1997”
whose family was able to attend the RTHK’s Top Ten Chinese Gold Songs
Award Presentation Concert in January 2008. Although the family was
given four tickets, Pui Ying and her mum decided to invite her friend and
his mum to go to the concert with them. Chan Tze Hay and Lui Pui Ying
have been friends since their mums met at the Maternal Care Health
Clinics during well-baby check-ups. As both children were born in May
1997, they both participated in the 1997-9 surveys and became a part of
the “Children of 1997” birth cohort. We were delighted to meet these two
children and were greatly encouraged by their story!
If you would like to feature in the “Children of 1997” please
send in your story to us!
Pui Ying (left) and Tze Hay (right) at the RTHK’s Top Ten
Chinese Gold Songs Award Presentation Concert
in January 2008
It’s not just a myth, smoking DOES affect babies
illnesses. From the data that we collected from you, participants in “Children of 1997”, we took a closer look
at the impact of tobacco smoke on
the health of our children here in
Hong Kong. Our findings, recently
published in an international journal,
Tobacco Control, show that babies exLocal HK newspaper “The Sun” reports on the
posed
to tobacco smoke at home had
negative effects of smoking on babies 28/05/2008
an increased risk not just of respiraArticles and tips on babies’ health
tory illnesses, but also of all kinds of
from parenting magazines all advise
infectious diseases during childhood.
parents to protect babies from toIn addition, the first few months of a
bacco smoke. Many research studies
baby’s life are crucial, because it is at
indicate that babies exposed to tothis time that the effect of tobacco
bacco smoke within their own home
smoke inhaled by the babies is greathave an increased risk of respiratory
est. These findings from Hong Kong
were widely reported in the press
both locally and overseas.
British newspaper “The Daily Mail” highlights
research findings from Hong Kong’s
“Children of 1997”
Other Ongoing Projects
These are some of the projects we are currently working on, trying
to find out how to achieve optimal growth and development for
children in Hong Kong.
Are children healthier in
some parts of Hong Kong
than others?
Using “Children of 1997”, we are drawing
geographical maps of Hong Kong to pinpoint
any “hot-spots” where children are in better
health. This will help us identify neighbourhood factors contributing to health.
What helps infants grow?
Parents are often concerned about their
child’s growth. In “Children of 1997” we are
investigating what factors are associated
with infants growing faster in both weight
and height. For example it looks as if later
born children are slightly bigger at birth but
then grow slightly more slower, whilst boys
grow faster than girls.
Does breastfeeding protect
against childhood obesity?
We all know that breastfeeding is ideal for babies,
because it helps their growth and development and
maybe even ends up with them having longer legs! Are
children who were breastfed as babies also less likely
to be obese than other children? It looks as if breastfeeding might be protective. Our goal for this particular study is to shed some light on how breastfeeding
during infancy really affects our children today, here
in Hong Kong.
How do Hong Kong children
measure up?
In 2007 the World Health Organization released new
standards for children’s height and weight worldwide. We are now comparing “Children of 1997” with
these new WHO standards to see how well they work
for Chinese children.
PAGE 3
“CHILDREN OF 1997”
Understanding the basics of the research.
In school, we are taught in science
classes that genetics shape our bodies. For example, eye colour is passed
down from our parents in the genetic
code (DNA).
Recently, scientists have come to
realize that it is not as simple as inheriting a mix of our parents’ DNA,
because our parents’ or grandparents
experiences may affect the way that
DNA works in our bodies (called gene
expression), so for example our parents’ diet could affect what we look
like today. This is a very new and exciting science called “epigenetics”, which
may be particularly relevant to Chi-
nese people in Hong Kong, because
lifestyles have changed so much recently. Many Chinese children are
now growing up in a very different
world, with a very different lifestyle,
from their parents or grandparents.
You may remember the TVB
documentary, “The Growth of Three
Successive Generations”, aired last
year in November, where Professor
Gabriel Leung used epigenetics to
offer some explanation as to why so
many Chinese people today suffer
from diabetes. “In China, our grandparents’ generation had less to eat,
therefore their bodies’ learnt to deal
with the small amount of food and
nutrition it was being fed to survive.
However, this ability has been passed
down to today’s generation, where
there is a surplus of nutritious food.
We inherited the same make-up,
catering for small amounts of food,
yet because we consume so much,
the expression of our genes is now
resulting in the onset of illnesses such
as diabetes.”
The “Children of 1997” participants
are very important because several
generations of your family may have
lived through very rapid changes in
lifestyle, so it may be easier to see
epigenetic effects in Hong Kong than
almost anywhere else in the world.
Understanding epigenetic effects on
health is part of the challenge that
our research team is taking on, with
your help, so as to improve health
here in Hong Kong and for people
world wide.
New study of influenza vaccination in children
You may have heard
about the government’s new recommendation that all
children below the age of 5 should
have a vaccination against influenza.
Our colleagues in the University of
Hong Kong, School of Public Health,
are preparing a study of the feasibility
and potential benefits of extending
this scheme to older school-age children. Later this year we will let you
know how you can participate in this
family-based study and further contribute to public health knowledge in
Hong Kong.
“CHILDREN OF 1997”
PAGE 4
Tennis
Badminton
Dancing
Hockey
Below are 12 English words related to the topic of
SPORTS. Find all that are listed.
Gymnastics
Trophy
Goal
Ballet
(Clue: Some may be backwards, diagonal, up or down.
Have fun searching!)
Swimming
Team
Soccer
Volleyball
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If you send in this correctly completed word
search and have returned the completed
“Children of 1997” 2008 Follow-Up Survey questionnaire, you will automatically
be entered into a lottery to win one of our
400 prizes! Each prize in the lottery is a supermarket coupon for HK$50! The deadline
to enter the lottery is September 19th, 2008.
You need to have sent back the questionnaire and the word search by that date to
be included. Thanks!
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In honour of our “Children of 1997” celebrating their 11th
birthday, we specially designed a card to wish everyone
happiness and health. We sincerely hope you liked it!
If you did not receive a card, please let us know so that we can
send you one, even if it is belated! Call us on 28199924.
Sponsors:
The University of Hong Kong and Department of Health.
Funding:
Grants have been awarded from several prestigious
organisations
Hong Kong Health Care and Promotion Fund
Health and Health Services Research Fund
Research Fund for the Control of Infectious Diseases
New Research Report:
Kwok MK, Schooling CM, Ho LM, Leung S, Mak KH, McGhee SM,
Lam TH, Leung GM. Early life second hand smoke exposure and
serious infectious morbidity during the first eight years: evidence
from Hong Kong’s “Children of 1997” birth cohort.
Tobacco Control. 2008;17(4):263-70.
Contact us:
If you have changed your address, phone or email since
you last contacted us, please let us know your new details
so we can keep in touch with you better.
“Children of 1997” Research Team
The University of Hong Kong,
5/F William Mong Block, 21 Sassoon Road, Hong Kong.
Tel: (852) 2819 9924
Fax: (852) 2855 9528
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.hku.hk/aprmay97