Cohort Profile: The Social Environment and Biomarkers of Aging Study (SEBAS) in Taiwan.

The Social Environment and Biomarkers of Aging Study (SEBAS) is a nationally representative longitudinal survey of Taiwanese middle-aged and older adults. It adds the collection of biomarkers and performance assessments to the Taiwan Longitudinal Study of Aging (TLSA), a nationally representative study of adults aged 60 and over, including the institutionalized population. The TLSA began in 1989, with follow-ups approximately every 3 years; younger refresher cohorts were added in 1996 and 2003.

Religious activity, life expectancy, and disability-free life expectancy in Taiwan.

Research has implicated religious activity as a health determinant, but questions remain, including whether associations persist in places where Judeo-Christian religions are not the majority; whether public versus private religious expressions have equivalent impacts, and the precise advantage expressed as years of life. This article addresses these issues in Taiwan. 3,739 Taiwanese aged 53+ were surveyed in 1999, 2003, and 2007.

Depressive symptoms as an independent risk factor for mortality in elderly persons: results of a national longitudinal study.

Objective: Depressive symptoms have been associated with increased mortality risk in previous cohort studies, but there is a paucity of research on Asian elderly in recent years. The authors investigated the depression-mortality link using data from a representative national cohort.

Methods: Data came from the Survey of Health and Living Status of the Elderly in Taiwan.

Change in depressive status and mortality in elderly persons: results of a national longitudinal study.

The authors aimed to investigate whether a change in depressive status was associated with a change in the risk of mortality in the elderly during a four-year follow-up period. Data came from the Survey of Health and Living Status of the Elderly in Taiwan. A cohort of 1784 men and women in Taiwan aged 65 or older who were assessed on two occasions in 1999 and 2003, and subsequently followed up until 2007.

Social support and mobility limitation as modifiable predictors of improvement in depressive symptoms in the elderly: results of a national longitudinal study.

Few national longitudinal studies have investigated the predictors of a better depression outcome in geriatric depression. This study examined the predictors of improvement in case-level depressive symptoms in the elderly. In this prospective cohort and population-based study in Taiwan, 206 non-demented and case-level depressed subjects aged 65 and older were interviewed at baseline in 2003 and follow-up in 2007.

Hierarchy of higher-level physical functions: a longitudinal investigation on a nationally representative population of community-dwelling middle-aged and elderly persons.

Purpose: Understanding the hierarchy of higher-level physical functions to infer disability level (mild, moderate or severe) is essential for the precise targeting of preventive interventions and has been examined previously in a cross-sectional study. Based on longitudinal data, this study evaluated the hierarchy of higher-level physical functions.

Methods: Data from a cohort of 2729 community-dwelling persons aged over 50 with no initial disability were drawn from the "Survey of Health and Living Status of the Elderly in Taiwan" from 1996 through 2007.

The pregnancy health and birth outcomes of women who underwent assisted reproductive technology: Results of a national survey.

Background: There is an upward trend for parents to resort to assisted reproductive technology (ART) treatment due to delayed childbirth or birth difficulties.

Objective: This study investigates the pregnancy health and birth outcomes of women who underwent ART and analyzes the factors that influence birth weight to become<10 percentile when undergoing ART.

Materials And Methods: This study analyzed results of the first wave of the Taiwan Birth Cohort study.

Leisure activity, mobility limitation and stress as modifiable risk factors for depressive symptoms in the elderly: results of a national longitudinal study.

Few national longitudinal studies have investigated the modifiable risk factors for depression in the elderly. This study investigated the risk factors and health-related behaviors associated with depressive symptoms using a national survey of Taiwanese elderly with a 4-year follow-up period. In this prospective cohort study, 1481 non-demented population-based elderly were interviewed at baseline in 2003 and at follow-up in 2007.

Healthy behaviors and onset of functional disability in older adults: results of a national longitudinal study.

Objectives: To examine the combined effect of healthy behaviors on the development of functional disability in an elderly cohort.

Design: Prospective cohort study.

Setting: Taiwan Longitudinal Study in Aging from 1989, 1993, 1996, 1999, and 2003.

Determinants of cognitive impairment over time among the elderly in Taiwan: results of the national longitudinal study.

This study aimed to identify the risk factors for cognitive impairment among the elderly population in Taiwan. Data were drawn from three waves of the "Survey of Health and Living Status of the Elderly in Taiwan", a national longitudinal study started in 1989. We included respondents without dementia or cognitive impairment at baseline in 1993 and followed them over a 10-year period.

Areca nut chewing and mortality in an elderly cohort study.

Compared with the well-documented association with betel-related cancer, little is known about the long-term effect of areca nut chewing on other fatal diseases. The authors' analyses were based on a population-based cohort study in Taiwan, including 4,049 participants aged 60 years or older enrolled in 1989 and 2,462 participants aged 50-66 years enrolled in 1996. Information regarding betel quid chewing and covariates was collected at baseline and was updated at subsequent interviews.

The effects of Taiwan's National Health Insurance on access and health status of the elderly.

The primary objective of this paper is to evaluate the impact of Taiwan's National Health Insurance program (NHI), established in 1995, on improving elderly access to care and health status. Further, we estimate the extent to which NHI reduces gaps in access and health across income groups. Using data from a longitudinal survey, we adopt a difference-in-difference methodology to estimate the causal effect of Taiwan's NHI.

Religious involvement and health outcomes among older persons in Taiwan.

We use data from a nationally representative, longitudinal survey of older Taiwanese to examine the relationship between religious involvement-including religious affiliation, religious attendance, beliefs, and religious practices-and self-reported measures of overall health status, mobility limitations, depressive symptoms, and cognitive function; clinical measures of systolic and diastolic blood pressure, serum interleukin-6, and 12-h urinary cortisol; and 4-year mortality. Frequency of religious attendance shows the strongest, most consistent association with health outcomes. But, with only one exception, this relationship disappears in the presence of controls for health behaviors, social networks, and prior health status.

Stability and change in the perceived social support of older Taiwanese adults.

Objective: The purpose of this study is to examine stability and change in Taiwanese elders' perceptions about the availability of social support and the sociodemographic and cultural factors associated with change.

Methods: This study uses data from four waves of the Survey of Living Status of the Elderly in Taiwan that spans a 10-year period and employs latent growth curve models to examine trajectories of perceived support and the sociocultural factors that may explain variability in baseline levels of support and variability in changes in support as respondents age.

Result: Perceptions about social support appear to follow a linear trajectory across age, with significant variation in baseline perceptions and in patterns of change in perceived support across the sample.

Determinants of old-age mortality in Taiwan.

Relationships among socio-demographic characteristics, general assessments of health, and old-age mortality have been well established in developed countries. There is also increasing focus on the connection between early-life experiences and late-life health. This study tests these and other associations using representative survey data from Taiwan.

High incidence of JC viruria in JC-seropositive older individuals.

The prevalence of the human JC virus (JCV) in the general population at various ages was investigated. Polymerase chain reaction was employed to detect viral DNA in the urine. The results showed that the incidence of JC viruria was low in the young population, but it was high in the elderly.

Blood-sample processing for the study of age-dependent gene expression in peripheral blood mononuclear cells.

Although most new biogerontological studies seeking to identify longevity candidate genes and factors involved in successful human aging are population based, and likely to involve the collection of blood from extremely old individuals, to our knowledge no unified protocols have yet been published to describe a methodology permitting the simultaneous generation of different kinds of biological specimens derived from a single source of a very small volume of peripheral blood. Here we describe a method permitting the simultaneous generation of plasma, RNA, DNA, protein, fixed lymphocytes, and frozen blood aliquots from a single 10- to 30-ml blood sample obtained from donors of any age (10-102 years old), and we show that the quality and quantity of DNA, RNA, protein, and fixed lymphocytes obtained do not vary significantly with age. As is frequently observed, the older individuals have higher plasma proportions.

Whose education counts? The added impact of adult-child education on physical functioning of older taiwanese.

Objectives: Research has implicated education as an important predictor of physical functioning in old age. Older adults in Taiwan tend to experience tight familial integration and high rates of adult-child coresidency-much more so than is typical in Western cultures-which might imply additional influences stemming from the education of children. This could arise in a number of ways; for instance, through the sharing of health-related information between child and parent, the quality of caregiving efforts, monetary assistance for medical and other services, or other psychosocial avenues.