de Meer et al. BMC Public Health 2010, 10:615 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/10/615 Author details 1Municipal Health Service Fryslân, Leeuwarden, the Netherlands. 2Department of Health Sciences, University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG), University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands. 3TNO (Netherlands Organisation of Applied Scientific Research), Quality of Life, Leiden, the Netherlands. Authors’ contributions GM conceived the research question for this paper, performed statistical analyses, and wrote the paper. MR participated in the study design and protocol, supervised data collection and data management. SAR was the principle investigator of this study and conceived the study and financial support. The final manuscript was discussed with all authors, and edited as recommended by co-authors. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. Competing interests The authors declare that they have no competing interests. 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