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Background: Tobacco use is a major preventable cause of death in the world. This article describes and compares tobacco use prevalence for students attending junior high schools and senior high schools in Taiwan. Methods: This report uses data from the Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS) completed among 4689 junior high school students and 4426 senior high school students in Taiwan in 2004-2005. The GYTS uses a 2-stage sampling design to produce nationally representative data for junior and senior high students in general and vocational schools. Results: Higher smoking prevalence was observed among senior high (10.1% general schools and 15.9% vocational schools) than junior high (5.5%) school students. Smoking prevalence of girls in junior high (3.2%) and senior high schools (4.6% general and 11.1% vocational) was almost as high or higher than adult females' (4.3%) smoking rates. The pattern of smoking intensity across school years and type of school shows that the percentage of smokers who were experimenters (47.1%) was higher in junior high school and the percentage of smokers who were regular/established smokers (over 50%) was higher in senior high school. Conclusions: Smoking prevalence described in this report shows that there are challenges facing the tobacco prevention and control program in Taiwan. The findings suggest that schools should increase their smoking initiation prevention efforts and make available cessation programs and counseling to help students quit smoking. If effective youth tobacco control programs are not developed and implemented in Taiwan, future morbidity and mortality attributed to tobacco will surely increase, especially among women. (Contains 3 tables and 1 figure.)

The most typical and catastrophic car-motorcycle crash occurs when a car manoeuvres into the path of an approaching motorcycle at an intersection, which involves a car driver violating motorcycle's right of way (ROW). In Taiwan, however, motorcyclists are frequently the ROW violator--they are observed to frequently infringe upon the ROW of oncoming vehicles at intersections. Such a ROW crash in which a left-turn motorcyclist crosses in front of approaching traffic appears to be a safety problem in terms of its frequency and accident consequence. Using the National Taiwan Crash Database, the present study estimates a logistic regression model to predict the likelihood of an approach-turn motorcycle-turning crash (relative to a car-turning crash). Results indicate that given a ROW crash where the rider was female, old, drunk, unlicensed, riding a moped, and on a NBU roadway, the likelihood of a motorcycle-turning crash tends to increase. Our study contributes to the existing motorcycle safety research by reporting the determinants of the unique crashes in which the motorcyclist is the ROW violator., 1. Introduction Past studies [1-5] have identified motorcycle right-of-way (ROW) crash as the most typical and catastrophic car-motorcycle crash that occurs at an intersection. The crash type involves a car [...]

BACKGROUND: Tobacco use is a major preventable cause of death in the world. This article describes and compares tobacco use prevalence for students attending junior high schools and senior high schools in Taiwan. METHODS: This report uses data from the Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS) completed among 4689 junior high school students and 4426 senior high school students in Taiwan in 2004-2005. The GYTS uses a 2-stage sampling design to produce nationally representative data for junior and senior high students in general and vocational schools. RESULTS: Higher smoking prevalence was observed among senior high (10.1% general schools and 15.9% vocational schools) than junior high (5.5%) school students. Smoking prevalence of girls in junior high (3.2%) and senior high schools (4.6% general and 11.1% vocational) was almost as high or higher than adult females' (4.3%) smoking rates. The pattern of smoking intensity across school years and type of school shows that the percentage of smokers who were experimenters (47.1%) was higher in junior high school and the percentage of smokers who were regular/established smokers (over 50%) was higher in senior high school. CONCLUSIONS: Smoking prevalence described in this report shows that there are challenges facing the tobacco prevention and control program in Taiwan. The findings suggest that schools should increase their smoking initiation prevention efforts and make available cessation programs and counseling to help students quit smoking. If effective youth tobacco control programs are not developed and implemented in Taiwan, future morbidity and mortality attributed to tobacco will surely increase, especially among women. Keywords: tobacco; schools; surveillance; Taiwan., Tobacco use is a major preventable cause of death in the world. The World Health Organization (WHO) attributes over 4 million deaths per year to tobacco, a figure that is [...]

Abstract Background Tobacco smoking poses public health concerns because of its high risk for many chronic diseases. Most smokers begin using tobacco in their teens and recent reports indicate that smoking prevalence is climbing among youth. The Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS) is a worldwide, school-based, tobacco-specific survey, but cross-cultural differences limit its effectiveness in international studies. Specifically, the GYTS assesses not only the prevalence of smoking, but also tobacco-related attitudes, school curricula, and advertisements, which are culturally influenced. Therefore, we conducted this study to develop a Chinese version of the GYTS for both national surveillance and international comparison. Methods The original English GYTS was translated and back translated using a cross-cultural adaptation process. The comprehensiveness and feasibility of using the Chinese-version GYTS were reviewed by a panel of 6 tobacco-control experts. The understandability and cultural relevance of the Chinese-version GYTS were discussed in a focus group of 5 schoolteachers and 8 students. The expert and focus group feedback was incorporated into a final Chinese version of the GYTS, which was administered to 382 students throughout Taiwan by multi-stage sampling from 10 randomly selected schools. Results The internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha) for the GYTS subscales (smoking susceptibility, attitude toward smoking, and media messages about smoking) ranged from 0.70 to 0.94. The internal logical agreement of responses ranged from 85.3 to 99.2%. Conclusion The Chinese version of the GYTS has good reliability and validity and can serve as the foundation for international comparison and tobacco control in Chinese-speaking communities.

Background and Objectives: Chinese patients with ESRD have different comorbidity patterns than white patients with ESRD and require a validated comorbidity index. The objective of this study was to develop a new index for mortality prediction in 2006-2009 Taiwanese incident hemodialysis patients., Design, Setting, Participants, & Measurements: Data were retrieved from 2005 to 2010 Taiwan National Health Insurance claim records, and follow-up was available until December 31, 2010. The same comorbid conditions as the US Renal Data System (USRDS) index that occurred during a 12-month period from 9 months before to 3 months after dialysis initiation were used to construct the index. Integer weight of the comorbid conditions was derived from coefficient estimates of Cox regression for all-cause mortality, and the index was internally validated. The performance of the index was assessed by discrimination, calibration, and reclassification., Results: A total of 30,303 hemodialysis patients were included in this study. The weight for individual comorbid conditions of this index differed from that of the USRDS index. The performance of this index was similar to that of USRDS and Charlson indices in terms of model fit statistics, overall predictive ability, discrimination, and calibration. Hosmer-Lemeshow test showed that all three indices demonstrated significant differences between predicted and observed mortality rates. When patients were categorized by the predicted 2.5-year survival probabilities, the index achieved a net reclassification improvement of 4.71% (P<0.001), referenced to USRDS index., Conclusions: Compared with USRDS index, this new index demonstrated better reclassification ability, but future studies should address the clinical significance.