A roster of all persons aged 30–80 years was obtained from the offices of the Public Security Bureau, Bureau of Statistics, and Community Committee. Three-to-seven days before the baseline survey, the study staff distributed advertisement material to every household of the target community. A trained interviewer then completed a face-to-face interview. Interviewers were natives who knew the dialect of Taizhou to ensure smooth communication with the participants. After obtaining written informed consent, an in-person interview was conducted using a semi-structural questionnaire to collect baseline data. The interviewer-administered questionnaire covered socioeconomic status, demographic characteristics, residential history, personal habits (e.g., cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption, drinking of tea and coffee), dietary habits (semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire), family history of selected diseases, cognitive function, physical activity (over the past 5 years and during adolescence), medical history, and, for women only, menstrual/reproductive history and use of hormone therapy. Lifetime occupational history was also obtained in the survey, including all jobs held for at least one year. For each job, the following information was obtained: name of workplace, job title, major products produced or handled, and the period over which each job started and ended. For dietary habits, the questionnaire was designed to capture information on consumption of major food items such as soy foods, allium-type vegetables, and cruciferous and dark-green, leafy vegetables (Table 1 ). The mean duration of the in-person interview took about 50 minutes.
After the interview, weight, height, waist and hip circumferences, and systolic and diastolic blood pressures were measured. Blood pressure was measured twice by a standardized mercury sphygmomanometer. Systolic blood pressure was recorded to the nearest 2 mmHg at the appearance of the first Korotkoff sound, and diastolic blood pressure was recorded to the nearest 2 mm Hg at the disappearance of the fifth Korotkoff sound. The first reading from each interviewer was discarded, and the second readings from two physicians were recorded and averaged. Weight and height were measured with subjects wearing only light indoor clothing and not wearing shoes. Waist circumference was measured midway between the caudal point of the costal arch as palpated laterally and the iliac crest. Hip circumference was measured at the symphysis-trochanter femoris level. Two measurements were taken, with a tolerance for differences of <1 cm for height, 0.5 cm for circumferences, and 1 kg for weight. A third measurement was taken if the difference between the first two measurements was larger than the defined tolerances.
After the interview, weight, height, waist and hip circumferences, and systolic and diastolic blood pressures were measured. Blood pressure was measured twice by a standardized mercury sphygmomanometer. Systolic blood pressure was recorded to the nearest 2 mmHg at the appearance of the first Korotkoff sound, and diastolic blood pressure was recorded to the nearest 2 mm Hg at the disappearance of the fifth Korotkoff sound. The first reading from each interviewer was discarded, and the second readings from two physicians were recorded and averaged. Weight and height were measured with subjects wearing only light indoor clothing and not wearing shoes. Waist circumference was measured midway between the caudal point of the costal arch as palpated laterally and the iliac crest. Hip circumference was measured at the symphysis-trochanter femoris level. Two measurements were taken, with a tolerance for differences of <1 cm for height, 0.5 cm for circumferences, and 1 kg for weight. A third measurement was taken if the difference between the first two measurements was larger than the defined tolerances.
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