Subgroup characteristics of the association between volunteering and the risk of functional disability among older Japanese people: The Tsurugaya project.

Background And Objective: Although it has been well known that volunteering is associated with a significantly decreased risk of incident disability among older people, it remains unanswered which subgroups of older people the above association is most remarkable. We aimed to identify such subgroups by conducting subgroup analyses for age, sex, chronic medical condition, and socio-demographic factors.

Methods: Participants were 826 Japanese community-dwelling people aged ≥70 years who lived in Tsurugaya, Sendai.

Randomised controlled trial of a financial incentive for increasing the number of daily walking steps: study protocol.

Introduction: Physical activity is one of the major modifiable factors for promotion of public health. Although it has been reported that financial incentives would be effective for promoting health behaviours such as smoking cessation or attendance for cancer screening, few randomised controlled trials (RCTs) have examined the effect of financial incentives for increasing the number of daily steps among individuals in a community setting. The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of financial incentives for increasing the number of daily steps among community-dwelling adults in Japan.