adhesive bandage, cotton ball, lancet, desiccant pack, and return envelope. Subjects were instructed to fill out test
request form and collection card first and wash hands thoroughly before sterilizing either ring or middle finger
with the alcohol pad. Subjects used lancet on sterilized fin-
ger and applied drop of blood directly onto collection card, blood was allowed to dry on the card for 15–20 minutes, and card was then folded in half over the spot and placed in the small bag with desiccant. The small bag was placed in the large bag along with the test request form, and then the large bag was placed in return envelope. Subjects were instructed to return the envelope via mail
on the same day as collection. The data management team received the results.
SF-12 health survey
The subjective assessment of mental and physical health as composite scores utilized a shortened, validated version of the SF-36 health survey created by Quality Metric and in use since 1994 [21-23]. The scoring system applied was from Positive Aging Resource Center, and the reference range of scores had a cutoff of 50 for Physical Compo- nent Summary (PCS) and 42 for Mental Component Summary (MCS).