The purpose of this study is to clarify the relationship between smoking and mortality for the aged. We conducted a cohort study, in which 19, 636 (8, 530 men and 11, 106 women) persons aged over 60 years old in 1 city and 10 rural towns of Japan were enrolled. A self-administered questionnaire survey was performed in 1988. The participants were followed up for two years to assess risk factor for total death.
Cox's proportional hazard regression model was used to estimate the hazard ratios of total death, adjusted by the age and the treated diseases, during the follow-up period.
There were 447 deaths (251 men and 196 women) during the study period. Hazard ratios (95% confidence interval) for smoking against total mortality were calculated as follows: among men smoking was not significantly increased the risk; among women smoking was 2.10 (95% CI 1.27-3.45) and quitting smoking was 3.57 (2.18-5.86) .
These results suggest that smoking and quitting smoking have relatively high risk of total mortality in women in this population.

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Objective: The purpose of this study was to identify the promotion of the awareness for solving the nutritional problems through the intervention of the nutrition education program integrated with gender perspective, and to develop the evaluation framework in order to analysis the process for the implementation of the theme.
Design: 1. Establishment of the evaluation framework; It was developed based on the Reversed Realities Framework (by Kabeer) as an indicator of the gender perspective. It has two aspects: Dietary attitude and behavior, and Extent of sharing, through the identification of the validity to Ngobe people.
2. Nutrition education programs (intervention) ; the goal for the participants was “to be aware of their own theme”. The meetings were carried out eight times (four times at the folk handcraft cooperative work place and four times at the participant's home alternately) . The program was included the contents to share with their families and community people at their homes.
3. Forty-one women who participated in the folk handcraft cooperative workshop were targeted to analysis. The program was evaluated through two methods, the achievement to the goal and the framework.
Result: 1. Thirty-six participants (87.8%) were aware of their own themes.
2. Dietary attitude and behaviors were changed by thirty-six participants (87.8%), and Extent of sharing was changed by forty-one participants (100%) during the program. Then the stages were scored. The score significantly increased as the program proceeded. (p<0.01) The differences of the scores before and after were significantly correlated. (r=0.454, p<0.01)
3. Pass diagram were determined to explain the structure of the stages of the dietary attitude and the behaviors, and the extent of sharing. It was clarified that the two aspects had related with each other.
Conclusions: Therefore, it was clarified to promote the awareness on the theme to solve the nutritional problems through the nutrition education program integrated with gender perspective. It was identified the importance to share the theme with the families and community people for the implementation of the theme through evaluation framework.

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The purpose of this study was to develop the self-efficacy (SE) scales and to examine the relationship between diet behavior and SE in junior high school girls. The Japanese version of the SE for Exercise Behavior Scales (JSEB) and the Situational Appetite Measure - Efficacy (SAM-EJ) were developed by collecting data from 387 students of junior high school girls. Principal component analysis yields a single meaningful exercise behavior SE principal component and factor analysis yields five control overeating SE factors (Reward, Negative Feelings, Hunger, Relax, and Food present) . The reliability of those scales were established using the Cronbach α test. The JSEB was significantly associated with reported exercise behavior and the SAM-EJ was significantly correlated with Japanese version Eating Attitude Test providing evidence of criterion-related validity.
Based on their diet behavior, the subjects were assigned to four diet-behavior groups: no diet group, dieting group, exercise group, and dieting+exercise group. The result from ANOVA for SE scales showed that the dieting+exercise group had higher exercise behavior SE and control overeating SE in a relaxed situation than the other groups. These results suggested that exercise behavior SE was influenced by choosing exercise as diet behavior and to have high SE in the situation with a high risk of overeating, it required to do both diet and exercise. These suggestions became as an important standpoint for the intervention program to diet behavior.

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This study was conducted to identify the factors that influence self-efficacy in improving health behaviors of participants in the Lifestyle-Related Disease Prevention Session held in an urban city on the main island of Japan. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches were adopted; the focus group interview method was used for the qualitative study, the results of which were used to create a questionnaire to be used in the quantitative study.
The qualitative study was conducted through interviews with members of a participant group (five female participants in the 1998 session) and a specialist group (eight professions who ran the session) . The quantitative study was conducted with 287 female participants in the 1997 and 1998 sessions using the questionnaire that was created based on the analysis of the qualitative data. The questionnaire included questions about the frequency of the subjects' experience with 23 information sources that were assumed to raise self-efficacy, as well as the subjects' degree of self-efficacy in improving their diet and increasing their physical activity (10-point scale) . A total of 188 valid responses (65.5% valid response rate) were obtained and used for analysis.
The results showed a score of 6.73±1.60 on self-efficacy in diet improvement (mean ±S.D.) and a score of 6.77±1.93 in increased physical activity. Of the 23 information sources, three items regarding enactive mastery experience and self-instruction were associated with self-efficacy in both improved diet and increased physical activity (5% significance level) . Six items regarding ineffective vicarious experience or statement of objectives for other participants, as well as a positive perception of physiological and affective states reactions, showed significant difference for self-efficacy in increased physical activity.

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The aim of this research was to discover the promotion factors for continued participation in voluntary organizational activities for community care, and to this purpose we performed a case study on exploration of relevant qualitative factors. Research subjects consisted of sixteen members who were actively involved as volunteers in one of these organizations practicing innovative activities.
From the results, we identified three key factors that promote continued activity participation. 1. High level readiness: A factor which indicates the condition prior to activities, and includes the following four sub-factors: <<need of deepening relationship with local community>>, <<need of continuous self-development>>, <<generation that considers about life after retirement in local community>> and <<experience of realization about necessity for social support>>. 2. Feeling of affirmation towards system of constructed organization: A factor that is extracted from experience of actual activities, which directly induces participation to the activities and a feeling of affirmation towards the system of the organization that they have constructed. It includes the following sub-factors: <<cumulative experience of actual activities>>, <<charming organizational members>>, <<systems of activities allowing participation>> and <<supports from surrounding people>> . 3. Feeling of satisfaction from the functionality of constructed organization: A factor that stemmed from events that induced personal alteration, and includes the following five sub-factors: <<a place for cultivating the relationship with local community>>, <<a place for learning and discovery>>, <<a place for self development>>, <<a place for obtaining intellectual satisfaction>> and <<a place for care>> . Subjects began their activities with clear motives, and from the functions and systems of the activities that built up with accumulated experience, they obtained satisfaction about their personal aims of life, and proceeded to continue with these activities. In addition, there is suggestion that “the opportunity of creating an exuberant social relationship” plays an important role as a continuance factor of participation in these activities.

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