Abstract
Japan is now among the countries with the longest life expectancy in the world. Among the factors that have helped Japanese people to live longer is a healthcare system covering the medical needs of all people. This system is also highly regarded abroad1). However, there are a number of health problems in Japan today. Briefly, lifestyle-related diseases are increasing as the society ages rapidly, the associated nursing care poses problems, social security is threatened by worsening economics, and, as people worry about their health, mental diseases are increasing.
At workplaces, older and female workers are increasing. In 2010, while women accounted for 42.0% of all employees2), a large percentage of female workers were non-regular employees, who suffered many disadvantages in the status and conditions of employment. All employers are obligated to provide health check-ups once yearly to all of their employees under the Industrial Safety and Health Act, but diseases specific to women are not among the objects of health check-ups. In fact, men and women differ greatly in the structure of diseases. While gynecologic and breast diseases are major problems for working women, the consultation rate for women is low in Japan, which greatly interferes with the early detection and prevention of these female diseases.
Health check-ups for women usually mean examinations for gynecologic and breast diseases, but broadly they include examinations for urologic diseases, climacteric disturbance, osteoporosis, and mental health measures. For women, these diseases are a source of great anxiety, and should be examined under a special health check-up system tailored to women. There is a recent trend for more and more business enterprises and municipalities to establish a women's health check-up system, which is extremely popular among working women. This women's health check-up system is characterized by a large proportion of women with positive findings. In the present center, the percentage of examinees in their latter 40's with clinically significant findings was 50.9% for the gynecologic examination, and 24.5% for the breast examination (2010-2011 statistics)3). Though the majority required only observation of the course, it is important to present health check-up results with good instructions and counseling.
As more and more women take up jobs outside the home, we would like to build an effective and efficient health check-up system encompassing successive life stages. For this purpose, it is essential that medical institutions be organized to cope with female medical check-ups along with general health check-ups.
Health check-ups in future will be required not only to assess health at the time of the examination itself, but also as a total support for life and work including mental health.
