Environmental epidemiology is an important discipline for health effect research of air pollution. We planned a cross-sectional environmental epidemiological study to investigate the relationship between exposure to traffic related air pollution and/or noise, and incidence of cardiovascular disease in elderly Japanese people living in Katsushika Ward, Tokyo. We conducted this preliminary study on a 1/10 scale of participants to evaluate feasibility and ethical issues of our study plan, and drew up detailed future study plan. The plan was approved by the ethical review board of the Japan Epidemiological Association. We completed this preliminary study according to the plan, and obtained results. We found that there were no fundamental problems in our plan, and that it is feasible to conduct a larger scale study.

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