Abstract
BackgroundThe Japanese Study on Stratification, Health, Income, and Neighborhood (J-SHINE) aims to clarify the complex associations between social factors and health from an interdisciplinary perspective and to provide a database for use in various health policy evaluations.MethodsJ-SHINE is an ongoing longitudinal panel study of households of adults aged 25–50 years. The wave 1 survey was carried out in 2010 among adults randomly selected from the resident registry of four urban and suburban municipalities in the greater Tokyo metropolitan area, Japan. In 2011, surveys for the participants’ spouse/partner and child were additionally conducted. The wave 2 survey was conducted in 2012 for the wave 1 participants and will be followed by the wave 2 survey for spouse/partner and child in 2013.ResultsWave 1 sample sizes were 4357 for wave 1 participants (valid response rate: 31.3%; cooperation rate: 51.8%), 1873 for spouse/partner (response rate: 61.9%), and 1520 for child (response rate: 67.7%). Wave 2 captured 69.0% of wave 1 participants. Information gathered covered socio-demographics, household economy, self-reported health conditions and healthcare utilization, stress and psychological values, and developmental history. A subpopulation underwent physiological (n = 2468) and biomarker (n = 1205) measurements.ConclusionsLongitudinal survey data, including repeated measures of social factors evaluated based on theories and techniques of various disciplines, like J-SHINE, should contribute toward opening a web of causality for society and health, which may have important policy implications for recent global health promotion strategies such as the World Health Organization’s Social Determinants of Health approach and the second round of Japan’s Healthy Japan 21.
Highlights
Social determinants of health have become an important research topic in epidemiology
Several challenges face the social determinants of health studies, including: (1) the available evidence is mostly derived from studies using relatively simple data and methods, eg cross-sectional and cohort studies evaluating exposure at only a single time point; (2) the generalizability may be limited, as most of the theoretical and empirical evidence has been gathered in Western countries; and most importantly, (3) convincing theories that explain the mechanisms or pathways underlying the associations between social factors and health have yet to be proposed.[3,4]
J-SHINE is the most comprehensive household panel study far conducted in Japan, covering a wide range of participants’ lives during their life courses
Summary
Social determinants of health have become an important research topic in epidemiology. Longitudinal panel data are necessary for conducting robust causal inferences accounting for the dynamic reciprocal interactions between society and health. Such data are largely lacking, especially in non-Western societies. The wave 2 survey was conducted in 2012 for the wave 1 participants and will be followed by the wave 2 survey for spouse/partner and child in 2013. Conclusions: Longitudinal survey data, including repeated measures of social factors evaluated based on theories and techniques of various disciplines, like J-SHINE, should contribute toward opening a web of causality for society and health, which may have important policy implications for recent global health promotion strategies such as the World Health Organization’s Social Determinants of Health approach and the second round of Japan’s Healthy Japan 21
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