The Random Digit Dialing (RDD) telephone survey method makes the telephone useful not only for collecting data, but for random sampling. The authors tried a health behavioral survey in a catchment area of TORO University Hospital, limited to Ohta-ku, to apply RDD Sampling Methods of telephone surveys in Japan. The findings were as follows: 1) The number of phone calls were 1, 202 times during 4 days (40 hours). The calling frequency was 30.05 times per hour. 2) Of all calls made, 17.7% were to non-working lines including facsimile lines, 2.4% to lines of out of the target area, 15.7% to business lines, and 45.3% had unsucessful contact due to absence. Therefore, respondents were 51.5% of all targets which were sampled. 3) As to the number of respondents by gender and age, there were more female than male respondents in all age groups. The biggest proportion by gender were responders in their twenties in male groups and responders in their forties in female groups. There was no bias in either gender or age group between respondent groups and population in Ohta-ku.

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In order to assess the effect of passive smoking at home, 39 female junior college students and their mothers were surveyed concerning paternal smoking habits and asked to provide early morning urine samples in which the concentrations of cotinine (COT) and hydroxyproline (HOP) were measured. The concentration of urinary COT per gm creatinine (COT/Cr) of smoker was 1, 000 μg/g or more. There was no correlation between the number of cigarettes smoked per day by the father and the concentration of COT/Cr of either the mother or daughter. Their levels of COT/Cr remained 0-30μg/g irrespective of the father's smoking. The cases in which no COT was detected in either daughters or mothers were actually more frequent with heavier paternal smoking. There was also no relationship between the father's smoking and the concentration of HOP/Cr of the daughters and their mothers. One possible explanation of these findings may be that fathers who smoke at home do so outside of the room. Smoking by mothers was also found to not increase the concentration of COT/Cr of their daughters or rather low level of 5 μg/g. Thus, passive smoke at home did not show any effects on nicotine metabolite of daughters and mothers. The COT/Cr levels of daughters did increase significantly by 61 percent from 11.0 μg/g, as the result of a one hour exposure to heavy smoke in a meeting room.

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In recent years the relationship between feet and shoes has attracted social attention. Actually, numerous complaints of foot disorders such as deformity of toes and foot pain are made (Gerecki, 1978; Kura et al., 1989; Takeda, 1990) and among others, the frequency of complaints about toes is high. Particularly, the deformity of the first toe and its associated pain are frequently complained of. Since these symptoms are closely related with hallux valgus which has become known as foot disorder by the public, they receive attention. In those days when symptoms of hallux valgus became a problem, attention was paid to high-heeled shoes, which women wore by preference, as an etiologic factor. High heels assume particular shapes compared with other footwear and are apt to be judged by appearances to be a cause of disorders. Therefore, previous studies focused on wearing of high-heeled shoes and the name "high-heel syndrome" appeared. Since the problem occurred in women in the middle and upper ages, hallux valgus became a synonym for foot disorder in women and investigations were performed mainly in women. Indeed very frequent complaints of foot disorder are made by women and it has been reported that no lessthan 90% of women wearing shoes complain of some disorder (Halal ? Wilson, 1988; Kusumoto ? Ashizawa, 1988). Ladies' shoes are frequently slim and tight because importance is attached to a design. Many studies of the relationship between shoes and complaints about foot were published (Leslie, 1982; Kura et al., 1990; Christians, 1990) and narrow shoes such as high heels were regarded as a major cause of foot disorders. However, it has recently been demonstrated that "ill-fitting shoes", whether too small or too big, cause problems (Kumagaya et al., 1990; Nakai et al., 1991). Complaints suggestive of hallux valgus have gegun to be made by men (Ogihara, 1992) and the spread of foot disorders among ythe younger age group of either sex has been apprehended (Sato et al., 1993). With attention paid to the relationship between feet and shoes in the young, the author has made annual surveys of the feet of kindergartners and schoolchildren (Youich Tanaka et al., 1991b, 1992). The results demonstrate that many problems lie in the feet of boys. The style of dress of young men and women usually seen in streets has become unisex remarkably and the young show a preference for fashion over utility. This is true for shoes. It is in fashion to wea rather large shoes loosely.These facts, together with the view that "ill -fitting shoes cause problems", suggest that burden on feet is considerable not only in women but also in men. Information on the feet of the young, particularly young men, is so insufficient in quality and quantity as to understand the actual condition. Generally speaking, on the side of shoemakers, too, apart from shoes for fashion shows or professional sports shoes, men's shoes are not studied in greater detail than ladies' shoes. Under these circumstances, the author investigated the feet of university students of about twenty years old. The findings of the study suggest that the feet of men and men's shoes should be studied in more detail as in the case of women's.

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This study has examined the relationship between weight fluctuation and the reported results of annual health examination including the death cases. The subjects were 658 adults (200 men and 458 women) aged 30 and older in Sashiki-cho, Okinawa, Japan, who participated in annual health examinations at least 7 times between 1986 and 1994. The subjects were classified into"need of medication", "need of care", "need of observation"and"within normal limit"according to the results of 7 to 9 annual health examinations: in addition, the cases of death were separately treated. Each individual's variability of body mass index (BMI), was assessed through both the gradient of time-dependent (age) regression and the coefficient of variation (CV). For the obese subjects (146 except dead cases) whose BMI was over 26.0 at the first examination, the relationship between weight fluctuation (BMI gradient and CV) and the change in the statement after annual health examination was investigated. The change of physical statement from the first 5 years to the latter 4 years was categorized to"getting better", "unchanged"and"getting worse". The findings of the analysis of variance and multiple classification table adjusted for two covariates (age and sex) are summarized as follows: 1) The gradient of BMI was tend to be negative in most death cases. The CV was higher in the worse cases of physical statement than in the better cases; 2) The cases of"getting better" showed that the gradient was downwards with increase of CV, whereas the cases of"getting worse" showed that the gradient was upwards with increase of CV. The weight in the cases of"unchanged" was almost unvariable. It is concluded that since weight fluctuation and change of the statements on physical condition were associated, it is desirable to keep an individual's body weight within an adequate range, paying attention to weight fluctuation .

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Despite the fact that the national family planning program in Korea has accomplished its primary goals of fertility reduction and universal contraceptive use, the rate of induced abortion is still high and there has been an increasing trend in the population sex ratio at birth. It seems that the changes in the imbalance of sex ratio have originated from the traditonal sone preference. This paper aims, therefore, to examine the determinants of induced abortion through the investigation of pregnancy outcomes and their changes over time and to study the interaction between induced abortion, son preference and the imbalance of sex ratio in Korea. The abortion rate had increased rapidly until the mid-1980s when there were about the same number of abortions as live births. Thereafter, the abortion rate has been maintained at this high level. By parity it shows a much higher abortion rate for a higher parity at all time. From the first parity, the sex composition of previous children stands out as the most important factor in deciding the pregnancy outcome at all time. The probability of a pregnancy ending in an abortion increases substantially when parents already has a son. The decline of the desired family size and the sustained strong son preference has made the sex of children a more important factor in the determination of the pregnancy outcome. Women's education level had consistent effects on the probability of a pregnancy ending in an abortion, but the effects show a steady decline over time. Premarital pregnancy and urban residence also increase the abortion probability, this study suggests that the main concerns of the family planning program should be to strengthen the social support policies so as to weaknen the son preference value leading to a balanced sex ratio and prevention of induced aborations.

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