About the Authors

Hong Ding

Contributed equally to this work with: Hong Ding, Guang Li Hu

‡ These authors are co-first authors on this work.

Affiliation Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Southern Medical University, Guangdong, China

Guang Li Hu

Contributed equally to this work with: Hong Ding, Guang Li Hu

‡ These authors are co-first authors on this work.

Affiliation Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Southern Medical University, Guangdong, China

Xue Yan Zheng

Affiliation Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Southern Medical University, Guangdong, China

Qing Chen

Affiliation Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Southern Medical University, Guangdong, China

Diane Erin Threapleton

Affiliation Division of Epidemiology, School of Public Health and Primary Care, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

Zeng Huan Zhou

zhouzenghuan@163.com

Affiliation Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Southern Medical University, Guangdong, China

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: HD GLH DET XYZ QC ZHZ. Performed the experiments: HD GLH. Analyzed the data: HD GLH DET. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: HD GLH XYZ QC ZHZ. Wrote the paper: HD GLH DET XYZ. Administrative, technical, and material support: ZHZ.