The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has had a severe impact on mental well-being. Vaccination may have played a pivotal role in enduring this mental health crisis. The present study aimed to longitudinally investigate the association between COVID-19 vaccination and mental health status among Japanese population in 2021. Longitudinal data of 17,089 individuals aged 15–79 years who participated in a nationwide online study were analyzed. Baseline and follow-up mental health statuses were assessed using the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K6). General linear and multivariable logistic regression models adjusted for baseline levels of mental distress were used to examine the association between vaccine receipt and follow-up levels of mental health. Mean K6 scores were lower in the vaccinated than in the non-vaccinated participants. Those who had received one or two doses of COVID-19 vaccines were associated with improved mental health at follow-up in subjects with psychological distress at baseline (odds ratio [OR] 1.31 and 1.35, respectively) and were inversely associated with deteriorated mental health status at follow-up in subjects without psychological distress at baseline (OR 0.66 and 0.70, respectively) compared with no vaccination groups, respectively. The present study would indicate that one or two doses of COVID-19 vaccinations contributed to mental well-being in Japan. This finding might provide evidence for promoting vaccination against COVID-19 and emerging infectious diseases in the future.

Introduction: Low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) is an established causal factor for coronary heart disease (CHD) and ischemic stroke. A positive linear association between LDL-C and risk of CHD or ischemic stroke was reported from western populations but among Japanese the evidence still insufficient especially on the risk of ischemic stroke. This study used a longitudinal data from the Aichi Worker’s Cohort Study to explore the associations of LDL-C levels with the incidence of CHD, and stroke subtypes. Methods: Pooled data of 6325 adults (5001 men and 1324 women) who responded to the second (2002) and third (2007) wave surveys of the study were used for the current analysis. Propensity scores for LDL-C categories were generated using multinomial logistic regression that included age, sex, smoking, alcohol drinking, physical activity, body mass index, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, triglycerides, history of diabetes and hypertension, antihypertensive medication, taking dyslipidemia medication and survey year. Hazard ratios (HRs) and the 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) were estimated from inverse probability weighted (IPW) cox proportional hazards model for LDL-C categories associations with risks of CHD, stroke and its subtypes, and CVD. We also used restricted cubic spline to examine the possible nonlinear relationship. Results: During a median of 14 years of follow-up, 73 strokes (40 ischemic stroke, 30 hemorrhagic stroke and 3 unknown) and 60 CHD were observed. In comparison with LDL-C < 120 mg/ dl, LDL-C ≥160 mg/dl was significantly associated with the increased risk of CVD (HR 1.79, 95% CI: 1.12-2.86) and CHD (HR 3.82, 95% CI: 1.80-8.06), but not with stroke (HR 1.05, 95% CI: 0.54-2.06), hemorrhagic stroke (HR 0.47, 95% CI: 0.13-1.67) or ischemic stroke (HR 1.56, 95% CI: 0.66-3.68). The results of restricted cubic spline analysis showed that the risks of CVD and CHD gradually increased from LDL-C of 120 mg/dl. On the other hand, the risk of ischemic stroke was flat until around LDL-C of 160 mg/dl and then increased afterward. The risk of hemorrhagic stroke was flat from LDL-C of 120 mg/dl or above, but showed an increased risk trend towards lower levels of LDL-C. Conclusions: Based on this recent, long-term prospective study among middle-aged Japanese workers and by applying the IPW method to adjust for several confounding variables, we found that LDL-C was linearly and positively associated with CHD incidence while higher LDL-C levels tended to be at an increased risk of ischemic stroke, though non-significant.

Background: Better identification of high-risk individuals of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) for focused delivery of preventive measures requires risk prediction models using novel predictors. We evaluated the predictive value of long-term variability of systolic blood pressure (SBPV), which was recently reported to be associated with T2DM incidence, if added to a model with conventional T2DM predictors in a Japanese cohort study. Methods: A cohort of 3017 Japanese individuals (2446 male, 571 female) ages 36-65 years were followed from 2007 to 2019. Root-mean-square error (RMSE) and slope of systolic blood pressure (SBP) change regressed on year were calculated per individual using SBP values obtained consecutively from 2003 to 2007 to represent SBPV. An initial Cox model included age, sex, smoking status, regular exercise, family history of diabetes, body mass index (BMI), baseline SBP, blood levels of triglycerides (TG), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDLC) and fasting blood glucose (FBG), and backward elimination was used for variable selection. The c-statistics, net reclassification improvement (NRI) and integrated discrimination improvement (IDI) were used to compare the performance of prediction models without (Model 1) and with SBPV (Model 2). Results: During 9.8-year (median) follow-up, 135 developed T2DM. We confirmed that RMSE was significantly associated with T2DM incidence independent of other variables used in a conventional model. Backwards elimination procedure selected BMI, TG, HDLC, FBG, SBP RMSE, and SBP slope for the final model (Table 1). Although the c-indices were not statistically different between Model 1 (0.77) and Model 2 (0.78) as well as the NRI (7.1%), the IDI was statistically significant (0.8%, p<0.05). Conclusions: The present study revealed that long-term variability of SBP slightly improved the predictive value of T2DM if added to a conventional prediction model.

Back Background ground Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) are growing health threats in developing countries. We previously conducted epidemiological and qualitative ethnographic studies on NCD risk factors in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Palau, and found that NCD risk factors were significantly prevalent. Although people had some knowledge of NCDs, they had no clue to change their daily risky behaviour, revealing urgent needs for developing appropriate health education programs. Peer health education is a strategy widely applied in developing countries for infectious disease control and maternal and child health, and known to be effective to change behaviour. This article aims to describe the experience of developing peer health education modules and evaluating the trials.

Background: Recent innovations in information and communication technology have made it possible to assess diet using webbased methods; however, their applicability in the general population remains unclear. Hence, we aimed to examine the applicability of a web-based 24-hour dietary recall (24HR) tool to large-scale epidemiological studies by determining the sampling rate and characteristics of randomly selected participants from a Japanese cohort study. Methods: In total, 5,013 individuals were recruited from a cohort of 21,537 individuals, and 975 agreed to participate in this study. The participants selected either self-administered web-based dietary 24HR (self-administered 24HR) or intervieweradministered telephone-based 24HR (interviewer-administered 24HR) as the method for the dietary assessment and answered questions regarding the acceptability of the system. Results: The response rate of the 975 participants was 19.4%, corresponding to approximately 4.5% of the total study sample.About half of them chose the self-administered 24HR (46.9%). The median time required for the self-administered and interviewer-administered 24HR was 25 and 27 minutes, respectively. In the self-administered 24HR, older people, regardless of sex, tended to require a longer time, and approximately 60% of the participants rated the ease of use of the system as "somewhat difficult" or "difficult." Conclusion: Characteristics of the participants in this study were not systemically different from those of the entire study sample. Improvements in the approach to entering cooking details and the dish name selection may be necessary for better acceptability in order to be accepted as a self-administered dietary recall tool.