1. Introduction.- 2. Population aging trend of the world.- 3. SES, physical health, and long-term care needs.- 4. SES, comorbidity, activity limitations, and healthy life expectancy.- 5. SES, mental health, and need for long-term care.- 6. SES, social interaction, and health status.- 7. SES, dietary and lifestyle habits, and three health-related dimensions.- 8. SES, dietary and lifestyle habits, three health-related dimensions, and healthy survival days.- 9. SES, dietary quality, emotional well-being, and a five-year subjective health in middle-age.- 10. Causal relationships among three health-related dimensions.- 11. SES, environmental condition, three health-related dimensions, and healthy life expectancy.- Afterword.- Index.
Tanji Hoshi, M.D., Ph.D., is a professor emeritus at the Graduate School of Urban System Science, Tokyo Metropolitan University, Japan. He is highly active in research in the areas of public health and in establishing diverse research targets, i.e., medicine, diet, housing, dental science, and pet animals as they relate to human health. His main published work is Causal relationships between survival rates, dietary and lifestyle habits, socioeconomic status and physical, mental and social health in elderly urban dwellers in Japan: A chronological study (DOI: 10.4236/health.2013.58177).
Sayuri Kodama, RD, Ph.D., MMS, is a lecturer at the Department of Food and Nutrition Science, Sagami Women's Junior College, Japan. She is a registered dietitian, and she is also very much involved in research in public health nutrition areas, setting research targets for diet quality, and related factors. Her main published work is Dietary quality and its structural relationships among equivalent income, emotional well-being, and a five-year subjective health in Japanese middle-aged urban dwellers (DOI: 10.1186/s13690-015-0081-0. eCollection 2015).
This book is the first one to examine the cause and effect of elderly people’s healthy life expectancy, providing models that are easy to understand. The novel point is the success achieved in constructing a single structural model of cause and effect of healthy life expectancy. In the final models of the authors’ studies, it was possible to clearly point out that it is not the case that lifestyle habits including an ideal diet directly provide for healthy life expectancy.
This book is made up of published studies based on scientific evidence, using a vast amount of data based on about 8,000 in-home elderly people tracked longitudinally from 3 to 6 years, three times in all including baseline research, in a specific region of Japan. Therefore, health policy makers will be able to use this book as scientific evidence for creating area programs to promote good health that are focused on healthy longevity as the central issue. Academic researchers whose special fields are mainly public health will be able to learn both theory and practice to structurally analyze cause and effect of health factors.