Assessing urban resilience to public health disaster using the rough analytic hierarchy process method: A regional study in China

In the context of frequent occurrences of disasters worldwide, disaster-coping capability is imperative for risk reduction and contemporary emergency management. The global COVID-19 pandemic since 2020 has further highlighted the significance of resilience construction at different geographical scales. Overall, the conceptual cognition of resilience in disaster management covers multiple elements and has diverse yielding on regional assessment. This study assesses the local resilience to the public health disaster in the prefecture-level cities, focusing on two dimensions consisting of vulnerability and capability in the targeted provincial region of Jiangsu in China. To this end, based on the vulnerability-capability framework, the Rough Analytic Hierarchy Process (Rough AHP) method was applied to the resilience assessment. Drawing upon the criteria derived from literature, the criteria weights were determined with the RAHP method and we assessed urban resilience with census data. In addition, the hierarchical factors contributing to urban resilience were determined using robustness analysis. This research provides constructive ideas for regional disaster reduction and contributes to the government's capability to improve urban resilience.

Epidemiological characteristics of elevated blood pressure among middle and high school students aged 12-17 years: a cross-sectional study in Jiangsu Province, China, 2017-2018

OBJECTIVE

In this study, we aimed to present the epidemiological characteristics of elevated blood pressure among middle and high school students aged 12-17 years in Jiangsu Province.

SETTING

Hypertension, which is considered a rare disease in children, is an important early precursor to long-term cardiovascular damage, and elevated blood pressure in childhood is a strong predictor of hypertension in adulthood.

PARTICIPANTS

Physical examination and questionnaire investigation among children aged 12-17 years in Jiangsu Province were conducted from 2017 to 2018.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

Physical measurements included height, weight, blood pressure and history of menarche/first spermatorrhoea. Questionnaire investigation included family type, delivery mode, lifestyle habits and psychological test.

RESULTS

In our study we investigated 17 791 middle and high school students, consisting of 8701 female students and 9090 male students. The prevalence of screening elevated blood pressure among students aged 12-17 years was 20.0% (95% CI 19.2% to 20.9%) for female students and 22.3% (95% CI 21.5% to 23.2%) for male students. The prevalence of screening elevated blood pressure for urban male middle and high school students was higher than that of elevated blood pressure for rural male middle and high school students. However, similar phenomenon cannot be observed among female students. For both male and female students, body mass index (BMI), obesity/overweight and menarche/first spermatorrhoea can be a risk factor contributing to elevated blood pressure, and sleep time and regional distribution might be important factors that need to be investigated in depth.

CONCLUSION

We found a relatively high prevalence of screening elevated blood pressure among students aged 12-17 years for both female and male students in Jiangsu Province. The risk factors can be BMI, obesity/overweight and menarche/first spermatorrhoea.