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Hongkong's Poor People Have a Greater Risk of Serious Air Pollution

A research which spans seven years shows that when air pollution is serious, Hongkong's poverty population have a higher risk of death.

Huang Zheming is the Associate Professor of Public Health from Hongkong University. He said that when air pollution is serious, the people living in slums have higher risk of death.

Huang Zheming said that the majority of such deaths occur the day after air pollution index was up. The researchers analyzed 215,240 respiratory and cardiovascular disease cases from 1996 to 2002. The results is published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

The research staff collected those deceased residence, income, marital status, whether living alone and other details before his death.

When explaining why the poor are more vulnerable to air pollution, Huang Zheming explained this may be because they smoke more, less exercise time, poor nutrition and medical conditions.