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Elder abuse is a serious public health concern that increases the risks of negative health outcomes globally. It is well known that abuse in older adults is associated with depression; however, longitudinal studies investigating the causal relationship between these events are scarce. Because the cause precedes the result over time, the temporal relationships between abuse and depression should be verified from each direction. This longitudinal study, therefore, investigated and clarified whether depression causes or results from elder abuse among older Japanese adults. Two longitudinal analyses were conducted using data derived from the Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study. The data were collected in 2010 and 2013 through a mail survey of 1,737 people (983 females, 754 males) across Japan. Of those who did not experience abuse in 2010, 38 (5.0%) males and 53 (5.4%) females newly experienced abuse in 2013. Among respondents who did not have depressive symptoms in 2010, 60 (8.0%) males and 61 (6.2%) females newly reported depressive symptoms in 2013. After adjusting for demographic factors in Analysis 1, people who experienced abuse were 2.28-fold (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.68–3.09) more likely to have depressive symptoms three years later than those who were not abused. In Analysis 2, respondents who had mild or severe depression in 2010 were 2.23-fold (95% CI = 1.61–3.10) more likely to have experienced abuse after three years than those who did not have depression. After adjusting for several demographic factors, the results showed that abuse can lead to depression and that depression can be a cause of abuse. Therefore, preventing abuse should be considered from both directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sidewalks are indispensable environmental resources for daily life in that they encourage physical activity. However, the proportion of sidewalk coverage is low even in developed countries. We examined the association between neighborhood sidewalk environment and dementia in Japan. We conducted a 3-year follow-up (2010–2013) among participants in the Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study, a population-based cohort study of community-dwelling older adults. We ascertained the incidence of dementia for 76,053 participants from the public long-term care insurance system. We calculated sidewalk coverage (sidewalk area as a percentage of road area) within 436 residential neighborhood units using geographic information systems. Multilevel survival models were used to estimate hazard ratios for the incidence of dementia. During follow-up, 5,310 dementia cases were found. In urban areas, compared with the lowest quartile of sidewalk coverage, the hazard ratio was 0.42 (95% confidence interval: 0.33, 0.54) for the highest quartile, adjusting for individual covariates. After successive adjustments for other neighborhood factors (land slope; numbers of hospitals, grocery stores, parks, railway stations, and bus stops; educational level; and unemployment rate), the hazard ratio remained statistically significant (hazard ratio = 0.71, 95% confidence interval: 0.54, 0.92). Living in a neighborhood with a high level of sidewalk installation was associated with low dementia incidence in urban areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Elder abuse is a serious public health issue worldwide, but large-scale epidemiologic studies remain sparse. Although social factors in human relations such as social support and social isolation have been proposed as the factors related to elder abuse, cognitive social capital has not been examined.Objective: This study aims to clarify the prevalence of and the factors associated with elder abuse among independent older adults in Japan.Methods: The study design is a retrospective observational study. The data were derived from the Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study (JAGES). These self-report data were collected from 26,229 people aged 65 years or older living in 28 municipalities in 2013. The types of elder abuse and factors associated with them were examined using logistic regression analysis.Results: The prevalence of elder abuse among the sample was 12.3% (11.1% in males and 13.3 in females). In the entire sample, physical, psychological, and financial abuses were reported to be 1.26, 11.12, and 1.45%, respectively. Factors associated with increased odds of experiencing abuse were being a woman, living with family members, having poor self-rated health, and having mild or severe depression. By contrast, age ≥85 years, being widowed, or unmarried, and having a positive view of community trust were associated with a lower risk of experiencing abuse.Conclusion: While particular demographic factors and health are associated with a greater risk of elder abuse, our findings that trust within the community lessens the risk indicates the importance of social capital. This should be taken into consideration when developing population-based strategies to prevent elder abuse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND Many factors are associated with hypertension development. We focused on social participation as an aspect of social capital and investigated the contextual relationship between community-level social participation and hypertension using multilevel regression analyses. METHODS We used cross-sectional data from the 2016 Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study—a population-based study of functionally independent adults aged 65 years or older. The sample comprised 116,013 participants nested in 818 communities. Hypertension and social capital were defined by questionnaires. Social capital was assessed at both the individual and the community levels in 3 dimensions: civic participation (as an index of social participation), social cohesion, and reciprocity. RESULTS The prevalence rate of hypertension was 43.7%, and 44.1% of the respondents were involved in civic participation. Community-level civic participation, but not social cohesion or reciprocity, was negatively associated with hypertension in the total population (prevalence ratio (95% confidence interval): 0.98 (0.96–0.99), P = 0.004) and female group (0.97 (0.95–0.99), P = 0.015), and the association neared significance in the male group (0.98 (0.96–1.005), P = 0.13) after adjustment for individual-level social capital dimensions including civic participation, individual-level covariates, and population density as a community-level covariate. The interaction between community-level civic participation and sex in relation to hypertension was significant (P = 0.012). CONCLUSIONS We found a contextual preventive relationship between community-level civic participation and hypertension. The design of the contextual characteristics of communities by the promotion of social participation may help reduce the prevalence of hypertension in older people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigated the relationship between food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) responses and serum polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) levels of mothers and fathers recruited from the Chiba Regional Center, which is one of the 15 regional centers of the Japan Environment and Children's Study (mothers: n = 1477, fathers: n = 219). The expected PCB values were estimated from the participants' FFQ answers and medical records (age, body mass index and number of deliveries). Based on the stepwise forward selection results of Bayesian regression models, age and fish and egg consumption were positively associated with PCB concentrations and a number of deliveries were negatively associated with PCB concentrations in mothers, whereas only age was positively associated with PCB concentrations in fathers. These findings indicated that the estimation of daily dietary intake may be useful for the prediction of PCB concentration for mothers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have found an association between neighborhood characteristics (i.e., aspects of the physical and social environment) and the incidence of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and elevated CVD risk. This study investigated the relationship between neighborhood characteristics and CVD risk among older people in Japan where research on this association is scarce. Data came from the Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study project; questionnaire data collected from 3,810 people aged 65 years or older living in 20 primary school districts in Aichi prefecture, Japan, was linked to a computed composite CVD risk score based on biomarker data (i.e., hemoglobin A1c, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and estimated glomerular filtration rate). A sex-stratified multilevel linear regression analysis revealed that for male participants, living in neighborhoods with a higher perceived occurrence of traffic accidents and reduced personal safety was associated with an elevated CVD risk (coefficient = 1.08 per interquartile range increase, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.30 to 1.86) whereas males living in neighborhoods with a higher perceived proximity of exercise facilities had a lower risk (coefficient = −1.00, 95% CI = −1.78 to −0.21). For females, there was no statistically significant association between neighborhood characteristics and CVD risk. This study suggests that aspects of the neighborhood environment might be important for CVD morbidity and mortality in Japan, particularly among men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lime plaster applied to walls and ceilings often contains vegetable oil for improving water resistance, and is considered to be harmless owing to its natural origin. The purpose of this study was to assess aldehyde emissions from plaster containing vegetable oil in order to predict the concentrations of aldehydes emitted into the indoor air. A passive emission chamber method was used to observe the emissions of aldehydes from vegetable oil when mixed with sodium hydroxide solution. The findings show that the alkalinity of calcium hydroxide in the plaster would accelerate the formation of aldehydes significantly. Furthermore, aldehyde emissions from the plaster to which vegetable oil was added were tested using a dynamic emission chamber (the small chamber method). A plaster containing soybean oil strongly emitted hexaldehyde throughout the test period. Plasters containing linseed oil or perilla oil strongly emitted propionaldehyde and acetaldehyde. The calculated indoor air concentrations of the aldehydes emitted from the lime plasters containing vegetable oil exceeded the air quality guidelines of the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare, the Japanese Ministry of the Environment, and the German Federal Environmental Protection Agency. Moreover, these aldehydes are irritants and have unpleasant odours. Therefore, adding vegetable oil to plaster should be avoided to prevent sick-building syndrome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sick-building syndrome (SBS) is a range of symptoms such as eye irritation, sore throat, and headaches that occur when entering a newly constructed or refurbished building. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are suspected to be one of the major causes of SBS. However, although Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare of Japan set the guideline values for 13 VOCs, the incidences of SBS patients have not decreased. In addition, there have been reports that when people complained symptoms of SBS, most of them also claimed to smell an odour. Furthermore, the occurrence of SBS symptoms depends largely on the person’s sensitivity. In this study, the correlation between the sum of VOCs(C2-C16) including aldehydes (ΣVOCs) and SBS symptoms were examined by statistics. The odour was quantified using the odour threshold ratio (OTR) and the correlation between the total odour threshold ratio (TOTR: sum of the OTR) and SBS symptoms was investigated. These correlations were examined separately for sensitive and insensitive groups. TOTR and the concentration level of ΣVOCs were correlated with SBS symptoms among sensitive people. The findings indicate that TOTR, in addition to ΣVOCs, could be used as a new risk indicator for human health regarding indoor air quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]