Evaluation on a Mass Campaign for Salt Control in Shanghai: Characteristics of a Large Populationbased Sample

This manuscript aims to describe the demographic characteristics of a large sampling population from the Shanghai Mass Campaign Project for Salt Control. This intervention project enrolled 2 960 households and 6 886 residents. After unqualified questionnaire sheets were excluded, data from 2 941 households and 6 748 residents were valid and analyzed. Among them, there were 1 190 households (40.46%) and 2 665 persons (39.49%) in urban areas, 872 households (29.65%) and 2 005 persons (29.71%) in urban-rural fringe areas, and 879 households (29.89%) and 2 078 persons (30.80%) in rural areas. The male-to-female ratio was 0.91. The average age of the selected residents was (45.34& #177;14.31) years, the average education was (10.07& #177;3.83) years, the average le ngth of residence in Shanghai was (41.84& #177;17.04) years, and 28.59% were retired. There were fixed cooks in 2 255 households at baseline, accounting for 76.67% of the total households. Compared with the total sampled population, higher percentage of female residents (71.84%), older average age(51.79& #177;9.91) years, shorter average education(8.87& #177;3.77) years, and higher percentage of retired residents (45.01%) were identified in the fixed cooks. There were 1 290 cases of self-reported hypertension among the subjects, accounting for 19.12%, and 26.12% of the fixed cooks self-reported hypertension. The residents with self-reported diabetes accounted for 4.37% of the sample and 5.76% of the fixed cooks.