| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
This project aimed to identify prefecture-level variation in the burden of disease attributable to key risk factors in Japan, to inform future policy in the context of an aging society. In the first three months of the project, we focused on calculating the population attributable fraction (PAF) due to smoking.
For Japan in 2010, about 13.0 YLLs per 10,000 population were attributable to smoking. There were more smoking-attributable YLLs among men (16.8 per 10,000) than among women (8.9 per 10,000). These results are consistent with historically higher smoking prevalences among Japanese men than women. For men, prefectures belonging to the lowest quintile for smoking-attributable YLL rates included: Fukui, Yamanashi, Nagano, Shimane and Tokushimaa. On the other hand, the highest quintile consisted of Hokkaido, Aomori, Ibaraki, Tochigi, and Aichi. For women, the lowest quintile for smoking-attributable YLL rates included Ibaraki, Saitama, Kanagawa, Niigata and Toyama. The highest quintiles of attributable risk were found in Hokkaido, Aomori, Kyoto, Osaka and Wakayama. We identified a broad increase in smoking-attributable risk factors with latitude in men but not women.
This research identified significant variation in the proportion of the burden of disease attributable to smoking in Japan. More robust national level policies may help to reduce variation between prefectures in smoking-attributable burden. Future research will extend these findings to other risk factors and cause-specific estimate of disease burden.
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