Author(s)

Hideyuki Kanda, Satoshi Tsuboi, Masayoshi Tsuji, Takeyasu Kakamu, Yayoi Mori, Takehito Hayakawa, Tetsuhito Fukushima

Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, School of Medicine, Yokohama City University, Yokohama, Japan.
Department of Hygiene and Preventive Medicine, Fukushima Medical University, Fukushima, Japan.

The aim of this study is to clarify factors related to premature death among Japanese professional baseball players by a case-control analysis. The subjects are two matching groups of 622 Japan Professional Baseball (JPB) league players, those deceased and those surviving. Cases and controls are matched by birth year. All players debuted on the first string between 1934 and 2003, and are listed in The Official Baseball Encyclopedia of Japan. To compare means and frequencies of characteristics between deceased and surviving groups, t-tests and chi-square tests were used. A logistic regression analysis was assessed contributions of each independent variable on death. Significant differences between deceased and surviving players were observed in this study; deceased players had higher body mass indexes and longer careers. Furthermore, logistic regression analysis confirmed that body mass index and career length were statistically significant determinants of death for baseball players. This is the first report to examine factors of death for professional baseball players except employing data attained from Major League Baseball.

Factors of Death; Professional Baseball Player; Body Mass Index; Career Length

Kanda, H. , Tsuboi, S. , Tsuji, M. , Kakamu, T. , Mori, Y. , Hayakawa, T. and Fukushima, T. (2013) What factors are associated with premature death among professional baseball players in Japan?. Health, 5, 757-760. doi: 10.4236/health.2013.54100.