title: Association Between Television Viewing Time and All-Cause Mortality: A Meta-Analysis of Cohort Studies.
abstract: Findings on the association between television (TV) viewing and all-cause mortality in epidemiologic studies have been inconsistent. Therefore, we conducted a meta-analysis of data from prospective cohort studies to quantify this association. Relevant articles were identified by searching MEDLINE (PubMed; National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, Maryland) and EMBASE (Elsevier B.V., Amsterdam, the Netherlands) from inception to March 1, 2015, and reviewing the reference lists of retrieved articles. Study-specific results were pooled using a random-effects model. Of 2,578 citations identified by the search strategy, 10 cohort studies (61,494 deaths among 647,475 individuals) met the inclusion criteria. The summary relative risk of all-cause mortality for the highest category of TV viewing time versus the lowest was 1.33 (95% confidence interval: 1.20, 1.47), with heterogeneity among studies (I(2) = 66.7%, P(heterogeneity) = 0.001). In dose-response meta-analysis, TV viewing time was statistically significantly associated with all-cause mortality risk in a J-shaped fashion (P(nonlinearity) = 0.001). These results indicate that prolonged TV viewing time might increase the risk of all-cause mortality. Given the high prevalence of excessive TV viewing, public health recommendations or interventions aimed at decreasing the amount of TV viewing time in modern societies are warranted.
authors.forename: Jiang-Wei
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: Long-Gang
authors.initials: LG
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Xiao
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.forename: Ying-Ying
authors.initials: YY
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Yong-Bing
authors.initials: YB
authors.lastname: Xiang
mesh_terms: D015331:Cohort Studies; D006801:Humans; D009026:Mortality; D012306:Risk; D013690:Television / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D013997:Time Factors
keywords: all-cause mortality; cohort studies; dose-response analysis; meta-analysis; television viewing