The assessment of vulnerability to floods in Guangdong province at district level / 中华预防医学杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To evaluate the vulnerability to floods in Guangdong province at district level.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Data were collected from the sixth census, the 2010 Statistical Yearbook of Guangdong, the 2010 Health Statistics Yearbook of Guangdong and China Disease Prevention and Control information systems, etc. The weight of each indicator was determined based on subjective method and objective method respectively; and finally the results of the two methods were compared.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>13 indicators were selected for the assessment of vulnerability to floods, including 6 sensitivity indicators, 5 adaptability indicators and 2 exposure indicators. Indicators with large weight (subjective weight/objective weight) were the proportion of population older than 65 years old (0.31/0.30), the proportion of population older than 65 years old (0.16/0.23), infant mortality rate (0.18/0.20), the total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita (0.33/0.21), the proportion of illiterate in the population older than 15 years old (0.19/0.28), history frequency of floods (0.75/0.75). The mean vulnerability index (VI) calculated by subjective method was 0.35 with the standard deviation of 0.10; the mean vulnerability index calculated by objective method was 0.31 with the standard deviation of 0.08. The two weighting methods showed consistent results of vulnerability index (ICC = 0.975, P < 0.01). VI of most districts dropped in the interval of 0.30 - 0.39. Districts with subjective VI > 0.50 or objective VI > 0.40 should pay more attention to floods, including parts of the coastal areas, Beijiang River Basin, the eastern tributary area of Dongjiang River and the northern part of Pearl River Delta. Dapu district of Meizhou (0.55/0.45), Dianbai district and Maogang district of Maoming (0.54/0.48) were most vulnerable. Districts of Heyuan, Dongguan, Zhaoqing and Huizhou were less vulnerable, Yuancheng district of Heyuan showed least vulnerable to floods (0.15/0.12) followed by Dongguan (0.18/0.16), Duanzhou district (0.18/0.16) and Guangning (0.17/0.15) district of Zhaoqing. The score of indicators differed among different level of vulnerability (P < 0.05).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>Different regions of Guangdong province showed different vulnerability to floods, vulnerable areas should be priority in the prevention and control of floods.</p>

Association between temperature and daily mortality in Guangzhou, 2006-2009: a time-series study / 中华流行病学杂志

Objective To study the association between temperature and daily mortality from June 1, 2006 to December 31, 2009 in Guangzhou. Methods Time series approach was used to estimate the impact of temperature on the rates of total and cause-specific daily mortality. We fitted generalized additive Poisson regression using non-parametric smooth functions to control for the long-term time trend, day of week, air pollution and other weather variables. Results A slight sloping U-like relationship between the total mortality and temperature was found, with an optimum average temperature (temperature with lowest mortality risk) value of 19.7 ℃ in Guangzhou. For temperature above the optimum value, the relative risk of total mortality increased by 3.0% (RR=1.030,95%CI: 1.011-1.050) for each increase of degree in Celsius. For average temperature below the optimum value, the relative risk of total mortality and diseases of circulatory system had a 3.3%(RR=0.967,95%CI: 0.936-0.997 ) decrease and a 3.6% ( RR= 0.964,95%CI:0.935-0.994 ) increase,for each degree of Celsius increase, respectively. Conclusion Our findings showed that the temperature had an impact on the daily mortality in Guangzhou. Countermeasures needed to be taken to reduce the temperature related mortality.