Journal of Epidemiology
Online ISSN : 1349-9092
Print ISSN : 0917-5040
ISSN-L : 0917-5040
Volume 25, Issue 8
Displaying 1-8 of 8 articles from this issue
Review Article
  • Noriko Kato, Toshihiko Yanagawa, Takeo Fujiwara, Alina Morawska
    2015 Volume 25 Issue 8 Pages 507-516
    Published: August 05, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: August 05, 2015
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Supplementary material
    The prevalence of mental health problems among children and adolescents is of growing importance. Intervening in children’s mental health early in life has been shown to be more effective than trying to resolve these problems when children are older. With respect to prevention activities in community settings, the prevalence of problems should be estimated, and the required level of services should be delivered. The prevalence of children’s mental health disorders has been reported for many countries. Preventive intervention has emphasized optimizing the environment. Because parents are the primary influence on their children’s development, considerable attention has been placed on the development of parent training to strengthen parenting skills. However, a public-health approach is necessary to confirm that the benefits of parent-training interventions lead to an impact at the societal level. This literature review clarifies that the prevalence of mental health problems is measured at the national level in many countries and that population-level parenting interventions can lower the prevalence of mental health problems among children in the community.
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Original Article
  • Shih-Chang Hung, Kuan-Fu Liao, Chih-Hsin Muo, Shih-Wei Lai, Chia-Wei C ...
    2015 Volume 25 Issue 8 Pages 517-521
    Published: August 05, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: August 05, 2015
    Advance online publication: May 16, 2015
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Background: It remains unknown whether hearing loss increases the risk of Alzheimer’s disease. This study aimed to examine the association between hearing loss and risk of Alzheimer’s disease in older people in Taiwan.
    Methods: Analyzing the database from Taiwan’s National Health Insurance Program, this case-control study enrolled 488 subjects ≥65 years old with newly diagnosed Alzheimer’s disease as a case group and 1952 subjects without Alzheimer’s disease as a control group from 1998–2011. Patients with Alzheimer’s disease and other comorbidities were identified by analyzing ICD-9 coding in claims data. The association of hearing loss, other comorbidities, and risk of Alzheimer’s disease were compared between groups.
    Results: After controlling for confounders, multivariable logistic regression showed an adjusted odds ratio of Alzheimer’s disease of 1.39 in people with hearing loss (95% CI, 1.05–1.84) versus those without. Parkinson’s disease (OR 4.44; 95% CI, 2.54–7.78), head injury (OR 2.31; 95% CI, 1.46–3.66), depression (OR 1.68; 95% CI, 1.19–2.39), hypertension (OR 1.40; 95% CI, 1.10–1.79), and age (each year, OR 1.03; 95% CI, 1.01–1.05) also showed strong links with Alzheimer’s.
    Conclusions: Hearing loss is associated with increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease in older people in Taiwan.
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  • Tetsuya Iwamoto, Hideki Hashimoto, Hiromasa Horiguchi, Hideo Yasunaga
    2015 Volume 25 Issue 8 Pages 522-528
    Published: August 05, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: August 05, 2015
    Advance online publication: July 11, 2015
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Supplementary material
    Background: Though evidence is limited in Japan, clinical controlled studies overseas have revealed that specialized care units are associated with better outcomes for acute stoke patients. This study aimed to examine the effectiveness of hospital functions for acute care of ischemic stroke on in-hospital mortality, with statistical accounting for referral bias.
    Methods: We derived data from a large Japanese claim-based inpatient database linked to the Survey of Medical Care Institutions and Hospital Report data. We compared the mortality of acute ischemic stroke patients (n = 41 476) in hospitals certified for acute stroke treatment with that in non-certified institutions. To adjust for potential referral bias, we used differential distance to hospitals from the patient’s residence as an instrumental variable and constructed bivariate probit models.
    Results: With the ordinary probit regression model, in-hospital mortality in certified hospitals was not significantly different from that in non-certified institutions. Conversely, the model with the instrumental variable method showed that admission to certified hospitals reduced in-hospital mortality by 30.7% (P < 0.001). This difference remained after adjusting for hospital size, volume, staffing, and intravenous use of tissue plasminogen activator.
    Conclusions: Comparison accounting for referral selection found that certified hospital function for acute ischemic stroke care was associated with significantly lower in-hospital mortality. Our results indicate that organized stroke care—with certified subspecialty physicians and around-the-clock availability of personnel, imaging equipment, and emergency neurosurgical procedures in an intensive stroke care unit—is effective in improving outcomes in acute ischemic stroke care.
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  • Kenji Obayashi, Keigo Saeki, Kimie Miyata, Tomo Nishi, Nobuhiro Tone, ...
    2015 Volume 25 Issue 8 Pages 529-535
    Published: August 05, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: August 05, 2015
    Advance online publication: June 06, 2015
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Supplementary material
    Background: Cataract surgery (CS) drastically increases the capacity for light reception to the retina. Several previous studies have suggested the beneficial effect of CS on subjectively measured sleep quality; however, the association between CS and objectively measured sleep quality remains uncertain.
    Methods: To evaluate the association between CS and objectively measured sleep quality in home settings, we conducted a cross-sectional study in 1037 elderly individuals (mean age, 71.9 years). We evaluated actigraphically measured sleep quality, urinary 6-sulfatoxymelatonin excretion, and ambulatory light levels, in addition to CS status.
    Results: The CS group (n = 174) showed significantly higher sleep efficiency and shorter wake after sleep onset than the no CS group (n = 863), even after adjustment for age, gender, body mass index, current smoking status, alcohol consumption, hypertension, diabetes, sleep medication, bedtime, rising time, daytime physical activity, daytime and nighttime light exposure, and urinary 6-sulfatoxymelatonin excretion (sleep efficiency: 85.8% in the CS group vs 84.4% in the no CS group, P = 0.042; wake after sleep onset: 45.7 min vs 50.6 min, respectively, P = 0.033). In contrast, urinary 6-sulfatoxymelatonin excretion, sleep onset latency, total sleep time, and sleep-mid time did not differ significantly between the CS and no CS groups.
    Conclusions: Among a community-dwelling elderly population, CS is significantly associated with objectively measured sleep quality, but urinary levels of melatonin metabolite do not differ between individuals with and without CS. These associations are independent of daily light exposure profiles.
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  • Lianhong Guo, Jufen Liu, Rongwei Ye, Jianmeng Liu, Zhixiong Zhuang, Ai ...
    2015 Volume 25 Issue 8 Pages 536-543
    Published: August 05, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: August 05, 2015
    Advance online publication: June 27, 2015
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Objective: To determine whether gestational weight gain (GWG) was associated with increased odds of childhood overweight after accounting for pre-pregnancy BMI.
    Methods: In a prospective cohort study based on a premarital and perinatal health care system in China, data of 100 612 mother-child pairs were obtained. The main exposure was GWG as both a continuous and categorical variable. The outcome measure was overweight, defined by age- and sex-specific cutoff values for body mass index (BMI) in children aged 3–6 years.
    Results: A 1-kg increase in maternal GWG was associated with an increase of 0.009 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.007–0.010, P < 0.001) in children’s mean BMI; in the subgroup of pre-pregnancy overweight/obese mothers, the increase in children’s BMI was 0.028 (95% CI, 0.017–0.039, P < 0.001). Excessive GWG played an important role in childhood overweight when adequate GWG was used as the reference, with an odds ratio (OR) of 1.21 (95% CI, 1.12–1.29). The risk was highest (OR 2.22; 95% CI, 1.79–2.76) in the children of mothers who were overweight/obese before pregnancy and gained excessive weight during pregnancy.
    Conclusions: Greater maternal GWG was associated with greater offspring BMI, and the risk of overweight was doubled in children whose mothers were overweight/obese before pregnancy and gained excessive weight during pregnancy. As a result, maintenance of appropriate weight gain during pregnancy and prophylaxis of maternal overweight/obesity before pregnancy should be a strategy for preventing childhood overweight/obesity.
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  • Won-Kyung Lee, Hye-Ah Lee, Seung-sik Hwang, Ho Kim, Youn-Hee Lim, Yun- ...
    2015 Volume 25 Issue 8 Pages 544-552
    Published: August 05, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: August 05, 2015
    Advance online publication: June 13, 2015
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Background: There are few data on the interaction between temperature and snow and rain precipitation, although they could interact in their effects on road traffic injuries.
    Methods: The integrated database of the Korea Road Traffic Authority was used to calculate the daily frequency of road traffic injuries in Seoul. Weather data included rain and snow precipitation, temperature, pressure, and fog from May 2007 to December 2011. Precipitation of rain and snow were divided into nine and six temperature range categories, respectively. The interactive effects of temperature and rain and snow precipitation on road traffic injuries were analyzed using a generalized additive model with a Poisson distribution.
    Results: The risk of road traffic injuries during snow increased when the temperature was below freezing. Road traffic injuries increased by 6.6% when it was snowing and above 0°C, whereas they increased by 15% when it was snowing and at or below 0°C. In terms of heavy rain precipitation, moderate temperatures were related to an increased prevalence of injuries. When the temperature was 0–20°C, we found a 12% increase in road traffic injuries, whereas it increased by 8.5% and 6.8% when it was <0°C and >20°C, respectively. The interactive effect was consistent across the traffic accident subtypes.
    Conclusions: The effect of adverse weather conditions on road traffic injuries differed depending on the temperature. More road traffic injuries were related to rain precipitation when the temperature was moderate and to snow when it was below freezing.
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  • Yasuhiko Kubota, Hiroyasu Iso, Akiko Tamakoshi
    2015 Volume 25 Issue 8 Pages 553-558
    Published: August 05, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: August 05, 2015
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Supplementary material
    Background: The association between body mass index (BMI) and mortality among Asian diabetic people, especially with respect to the obesity paradox (ie, higher BMI is associated with lower mortality risk), remains unresolved.
    Methods: We followed a cohort of 3851 self-reported Japanese diabetics (2115 men and 1736 women) in the Japan Collaborative Cohort Study from 1988–1990 through 2009. Individuals were aged 40 to 79 years and free from a history of cardiovascular disease, cancer, renal disease, or tuberculosis. BMI was grouped into the following four categories: <20.0, 20.0–22.9, 23.0–24.9, and ≥25.0 kg/m2.
    Results: During 54 707 person-years of follow-up, 1457 deaths from all causes, 445 from cardiovascular disease, 421 from cancer, 43 from renal disease, and 148 from infectious disease were documented. Mortality from all causes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and renal disease showed L-shaped associations with BMI. Compared to diabetics with BMI of 20.0–22.9 kg/m2, those with BMIs of 23.0–24.9 kg/m2 and ≥25.0 kg/m2 had lower risks of mortality from infectious disease (ie, obesity paradox). The multivariable HRs for mortality from infectious disease were 0.50 (95% confidence interval, 0.31–0.81) and 0.51 (95% confidence interval, 0.32–0.82) among participants with BMIs of 23.0–24.9 kg/m2 and ≥25.0 kg/m2, respectively. Similar results were observed after stratification by smoking status and age and exclusion of early deaths.
    Conclusions: We observed L-shaped associations between BMI and mortality from all causes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and renal disease, while the association between BMI and mortality from infectious disease manifested the obesity paradox.
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Letter to the Editor
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