Funding for this research was provided by:
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (17K09195)
The Chiba Foundation for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention
Article History
Received: 22 May 2018
Accepted: 9 March 2019
First Online: 22 March 2019
Compliance with ethical standards
:
: On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.
: As this was an observational study using existing data collated by Chiba City, consent was not obtained from each subject enrolled in this study. All personal information (e.g., names and telephone numbers) was removed from the records, and all data were anonymized before being provided. The study protocol was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba University (Approval Number 1724). The study was carried out in accordance with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki and the Ethical Guidelines for Medical and Health Research Involving Human Subjects.