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Article History

Received: 24 December 2020

Accepted: 8 March 2021

First Online: 10 April 2021

Declarations

:

: All the authors have declared no competing interest.

: The institutional review board for ethical issues of the University of Tsukuba approved this study (No. 999, UMIN: 000019774). According to this, an official memorandum of understanding was exchanged between the institutional head and each mayor of the local government that has ownership of the information of health checkups from the citizens. Human rights were well protected.

: The protocol exempts individual consent as we obtained the data after concluding memoranda with the municipal heads. Information transfer was coordinated through local government officials, and only the output form without any individual data was disclosed to researchers. The names, address, and any other personalized data of the participants were completely deleted from the linked data to protect their privacy. Moreover, the output form is limited to the prefecture level, and the municipalities cannot be identified.