Health in Japan
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The level of health in Japan is due to a number of factors including cultural habits, isolation, and a
universal Universal is the adjective for universe. Universal may also refer to: Companies * NBCUniversal, a media and entertainment company ** Universal Animation Studios, an American Animation studio, and a subsidiary of NBCUniversal ** Universal TV, a ...
health care system. John Creighton Campbell, a professor at the
University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
and
Tokyo University , abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project by ...
, told the
New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
in 2009 that Japanese people are the healthiest group on the planet. Japanese visit a doctor nearly 14 times a year, more than four times as often as Americans.
Life expectancy Life expectancy is a statistical measure of the average time an organism is expected to live, based on the year of its birth, current age, and other demographic factors like sex. The most commonly used measure is life expectancy at birth ...
in 2013 was 83.3 years - among the highest on the planet. A new measure of expected human capital calculated for 195 countries from 1990 to 2016 and defined for each birth cohort as the expected years lived from age 20 to 64 years and adjusted for educational attainment, learning or education quality, and functional health status was published by the Lancet in September 2018. Japan had the highest level of expected human capital among the 20 largest countries: 24.1 health, education, and learning-adjusted expected years lived between age 20 and 64 years.


Chronic illness

Obesity in Japan in 2014 was about 3.3%, about 10% of that in the United States, presumably because of the Japanese diet. It has the lowest rate of heart disease in the OECD, and the lowest level of dementia in the developed world.


Suicide problem

Japan's suicide rate is high compared to the U.S. According to the systematic review ''Law in Everyday Japan : Sex, Sumo, Suicide, and Statutes, suicide rates have been at an elevated rate in Japan for 12 decades. In 1998, the suicide rate became more alarming as it increased, and it did not notably decrease until 2011. The ''
Yomiuri Shimbun The (lit. ''Reading-selling Newspaper'' or ''Selling by Reading Newspaper'') is a Japanese newspaper published in Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka, and other major Japanese cities. It is one of the five major newspapers in Japan; the other four are ...
'' reported in June 2008 that more than 30,000 people had killed themselves every year for the past decade, and the suicide count remained over 30,000 for the 14th year running in 2011. A study published in 2006 suspects that health problems were a factor in almost 50 percent of Japan's suicides in 2006. However, the ''Yomiuri'''s 2007 figures show 274 school children were among those who took their own lives, in which bullying was often a contributing factor. There are many factors to consider, but suicide rates overall appear to increase with age, as seen in the figure in this section. As of 2003, suicides of people in their twenties made up about ten percent, those in their thirties made up about twelve percent, those in their forties made up about sixteen percent, those in their fifties made up about twenty-five percent, and those in their sixties or older made up about thirty-three percent. Although suicide is a priority health issue, Japanese culture views the act as something different than morally wrong and unacceptable. In fact, according to Young's 2002 article, traditional Japanese culture accepts suicide as a positive moral act characterizing the person's sense of moral duty to others which is driven by social context.Young, J. (2002), Morals, Suicide, and Psychiatry: A View from Japan. Bioethics, 16: 412-424. Given that Japan is a collectivistic culture, moral duty to other members of society is important. Each individual is viewed as a part of the bigger group; everyone is considered a member of the group rather than as separated individuals. When a member feels that sacrificing their self would be best for the group as a whole, they are compelled to consider suicide as a viable option - they may believe that self-sacrifice is moral duty to the group. This is likely a part of the problem in trying to reduce the suicide rate. There is difficulty for psychiatrists and other mental health professionals in Japan to reduce the suicide rate when the act of suicide is, given the right circumstances, a completely rational and moral decision.


Smoking

One of the biggest public health issues is
smoking in Japan Smoking in Japan is practiced by around 20,000,000 people, and the nation is one of the world's largest tobacco markets, though tobacco use has been declining in recent years. As of 2019, the Japanese adult smoking rate was 16.7%. By gender, 2 ...
, which according to Tadao Kakizoe (honorary president of the National
Cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...
Center) kills more than 100,000 people per year and is responsible for one in ten deaths.''
Yomiuri Shimbun The (lit. ''Reading-selling Newspaper'' or ''Selling by Reading Newspaper'') is a Japanese newspaper published in Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka, and other major Japanese cities. It is one of the five major newspapers in Japan; the other four are ...
'', 8/9/2008(?). Cited in Scott, Doug
"Japanese Delegation Visits AAPA to Learn about PA Profession"
. ''AAPA News'', July 15, 2008, p. 5. Accessed 2 December 2009.


Alcohol and health issues

A team led by Professor Osaki of
Tottori University , abbreviated to , is a national university in Japan. The main campus is located in Koyamachō-Minami, Tottori City, Tottori Prefecture. Another campus, the Faculty of Medicine, is located on the Yonago Campus in Yonago, Tottori. History Totto ...
estimated the social cost of excessive drinking in Japan to be 4.15 trillion
yen The is the official currency of Japan. It is the third-most traded currency in the foreign exchange market, after the United States dollar (US$) and the euro. It is also widely used as a third reserve currency after the US dollar and the e ...
a year.


Access to care

In Japan, services are provided either through regional/national public hospitals or through private hospitals/clinics, and patients have universal access to any facility, though hospitals tend to charge higher for those without a referral. However, space can be an issue in some regions. More than 14,000 emergency patients were rejected at least three times by Japanese hospitals before getting treatment in 2007, according to the latest government survey. In the worst case, a woman in her 70s with a breathing problem was rejected 49 times in
Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...
. Public health insurance covers most citizens/residents and pays 70% or more cost for each care and each prescribed drug. Patients are responsible for the remainder (upper limits apply). The monthly insurance premium is 0–50,000 JPY per household (scaled to annual income). Supplementary private health insurance is available only to cover the co-payments or non-covered costs, and usually makes a fixed payment per days in a hospital or per surgery performed, rather than per actual expenditure. In 2005, Japan spent 8.2% of GDP on health care or US$2,908 per capita. Of that, approximately 83% was government expenditure.


Cultural influences

Traditional
Chinese medicine Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is an alternative medical practice drawn from traditional medicine in China. It has been described as "fraught with pseudoscience", with the majority of its treatments having no logical mechanism of action ...
was introduced to Japan with other elements of Chinese culture during the 5th to 9th century. Since around 1900, Chinese-style herbalists have been required to be licensed medical doctors. Training was professionalized and, except for East Asian healers, was based on a biomedical model of the disease. However, the practice of biomedicine was influenced as well by Japanese social organization and cultural expectations concerning education, the organization of the workplace, and social relations of status and dependency, decision-making styles, and ideas about the human body, causes of illness, gender, individualism, and privacy. Anthropologist Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney notes that "daily hygienic behavior and its underlying concepts, which are perceived and expressed in terms of biomedical germ theory, in fact, are directly tied to the basic Japanese symbolic structure." Western medicine was introduced to Japan with the
Rangaku ''Rangaku'' (Kyūjitai: /Shinjitai: , literally "Dutch learning", and by extension "Western learning") is a body of knowledge developed by Japan through its contacts with the Dutch enclave of Dejima, which allowed Japan to keep abreast of West ...
studies during the
Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characte ...
. A number of books on pharmacology and anatomy were translated from Dutch and Latin to Japanese. During the
Meiji period The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization ...
(late 19th century), the Japanese health care system was modeled after the model of Western biomedicine. At that time, western doctors came to Japan to create medical faculties at the newly built Japanese universities, and students also went abroad. Innovations like
vaccine A vaccine is a biological preparation that provides active acquired immunity to a particular infectious or malignant disease. The safety and effectiveness of vaccines has been widely studied and verified.
s were introduced to Japan, improving average life expectancy. From the Meiji period through the end of World War II,
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...
was a mandatory foreign language for Japanese students of medicine. Patient charts in Japanese teaching hospitals were even written in German. But even today, a person who becomes ill in Japan has a number of alternative options. One may visit a
priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in partic ...
, or send a family member in his or her place. There are numerous folk remedies, including hot springs baths ( onsen) and chemical and herbal over-the-counter medications. A person may seek the assistance of traditional healers, such as
herbalist Herbal medicine (also herbalism) is the study of pharmacognosy and the use of medicinal plants, which are a basis of traditional medicine. With worldwide research into pharmacology, some herbal medicines have been translated into modern remed ...
s,
masseur Massage is the manipulation of the body's soft tissues. Massage techniques are commonly applied with hands, fingers, elbows, knees, forearms, feet or a device. The purpose of massage is generally for the treatment of body stress or pain. In Eu ...
s, and
acupuncturist Acupuncture is a form of alternative medicine and a component of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in which thin needles are inserted into the body. Acupuncture is a pseudoscience; the theories and practices of TCM are not based on scientif ...
s.


AIDS

Although the number of AIDS cases remained small by international standards, public health officials were concerned in the late 1980s about the worldwide epidemic of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). The first confirmed case of AIDS in Japan was reported in 1985. By 1991 there were 553 reported cases, and by April 1992 the number had risen to 2,077. While frightened by the deadliness of the disease yet sympathetic to the plight of hemophiliac AIDS patients, most Japanese are unconcerned with contracting AIDS themselves. Various levels of government responded to the introduction of AIDS awareness into the heterosexual population by establishing government committees, mandating AIDS education, and advising testing for the general public without targeting special groups. A fund, underwritten by pharmaceutical companies that distributed imported blood products, was established in 1988 to provide financial compensation for AIDS patients.


Environment and disease


See also

*
2009 flu pandemic in Japan The 2009 Japan flu pandemic was an outbreak of the H1N1 and the Influenza A viruses across Japan. The World Health Organization raised the pandemic alert for influenza to level 4 in April 2009 following a worldwide outbreak of the H1N1 influe ...
*
Aging of Japan Japan has the highest proportion of elderly citizens of any country in the world. According to 2014 estimates, about 38% of the Japanese population is above the age of 60, 25.9% are age 65 or above, a figure that increased to 29.1% by 2022. P ...
* Erwin Bälz—an
oyatoi gaikokujin The foreign employees in Meiji Japan, known in Japanese as ''O-yatoi Gaikokujin'' (Kyūjitai: , Shinjitai: , "hired foreigners"), were hired by the Japanese government and municipalities for their specialized knowledge and skill to assist in the ...
and cofounder of modern medicine in Japan *
Health care compared Health, according to the World Health Organization, is "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity".World Health Organization. (2006)''Constitution of the World Health Organiza ...
—tabular comparisons with the U.S., Canada, and other countries not shown above. * Health care system in Japan *
Hikikomori , also known as acute social withdrawal, is total withdrawal from society and seeking extreme degrees of social isolation and confinement. ''Hikikomori'' refers to both the phenomenon in general and the recluses themselves. ''Hikikomori'' ha ...
*
Public health centres in Japan In Japan, a public health centre (Japanese: 保健所 ''Hokenjo'') is a government facility responsible for public health matters. The primary role of public health centre is to prevent infectious disease and Chronic (medicine), chronic health pr ...
*
Radiation effects from Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster The radiation effects from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster are the observed and predicted effects as a result of the release of radioactive isotopes from the Fukushima Daiichii Nuclear Power Plant following the 2011 Tōhoku 9.0 m ...
* Social welfare in Japan


References


Further reading

* * * * * * * * * See in particular Chapter 6 "Japan: Bismark on Rice", pp. 82–124; this book is a further expansion of Reid's 2008 stories. {{DEFAULTSORT:Health In Japan lt:Japonijos sveikatos apsaugos sistema ro:Sănătatea în Japonia