ArticleEnvironmental health and preventive medicine2023
Vaccination, regular exercise, and prevention of chronic lung disease reduce exacerbation of COVID-19 severity in northern Okinawa, Japan: A cross-sectional study.
Article in Environmental health and preventive medicine, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed, 3 citations in OpenAlex.
- Lessons learned from Okinawa, Japan underscore the importance of clinical epidemiology in COVID-19 prevention and control.Environmental health and preventive medicine · 2026Article
- Target Trial Emulation: Improving the Quality of Observational Studies in Inflammatory Bowel Disease Using the Principles of Randomized Trials.Inflammatory bowel diseases · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundAs at June 14, 2023, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic had affected more than 767 million people and caused more than 6.9 million deaths worldwide. This study aimed to clarify the lifestyle factors that influence the exacerbation of COVID-19 severity.
methodsThis was a cross-sectional study of patients with COVID-19 whose severity classification of "moderate or severe" (COVID-19 exacerbation) was defined as an objective variable. The 1,353 participants were selected from 4,899 patients with COVID-19 between August 10, 2020 and December 10, 2022. Participants who underwent a specific health checkup before the date for a COVID-19 consultation were included. Using binominal logistic regression analysis, we evaluated the odds ratios (ORs) for COVID-19 exacerbation according to lifestyle-related factors. Limitations were discussed using a target trial emulation framework which clarifies problems in observational studies.
resultsThe explanatory variables extracted as factors that exacerbated COVID-19 severity were gender (OR [man vs. woman]: 2.533, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.484-4.322); age (OR [50s vs. 10s, 20s, or 30s]: 4.858, 95% CI 2.319-10.177; OR [60s]: 9.738, 95% CI 4.355-21.777; OR [70s + 80s + 90s]: 8.327, 95% CI 3.224-21.507); and comorbid chronic lung disease (OR ['yes' vs. 'no']: 2.892, 95% CI 1.227-6.818). The explanatory variables extracted as factors that reduce the severity of COVID-19 were hospital consultation year (OR [2022, predominantly Omicron variant prevalent vs. 2020, predominantly Alpha variant prevalent]: 0.180, 95% CI 0.058-0.559); number of vaccinations (OR [2 doses vs. 0 or one doses]: 0.223, 95% CI 0.114-0.436; OR [≥3 doses vs. 0 or one doses]: 0.090, 95% CI 0.035-0.229); regular exercise (exercising ≥2 days/week ≥30 minutes each at an intensity that causes a slight sweat for ≥1 year) (OR ['yes' vs. 'no']: 0.458, 95% CI 0.242-0.866).
conclusionsThese results suggest the importance of vaccination, regular exercise, and prevention of chronic lung disease as measures against exacerbation of COVID-19 severity.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.