Association Between Mortality and Diabetes in Elderly Koreans: the South-West Seoul (SWS) Study

The investigators analyze follow-up data from the South-West Seoul (SWS) Study, a prospective observational cohort study of an elderly Korean population residing in Seoul, the metropolitan capital city of Korea.

Briefly, the study population was selected from four urban districts (Guro, Yangcheon, Gwanak and Gangseo) located in the south-west area of Seoul. A total of 1737 apparently healthy individuals (between 60 and 92 years of age) eventually participated in this survey starting in 1999. A follow-up examination was performed in 2002, and an additional 873 subjects who had not participated in the first examination were newly recruited.

After a median follow-up of 10 years, each subject's vital status or cause of death as of 31 December 2011 was determined after linking these cohort data with death certificate data from the Korean National Statistical Office. Terminology and codes from the International Classification of Disease, Tenth Revision (ICD-10), were used to classify the underlying cause of death due to cardiovascular disease (ICD-10 codes I00-I79), cancer (ICD-10 codes C00-C97) and others.