What problems will we confront in 2025?

An analysis of public health and welfare issues

Abstract

In 2025, we will face not only economic issues, with social security finances coming under increasing pressure, but also a greater problem in the anticipated shortages of staffing and material in the medical, nursing, and public health communities. Specifically, the construction of a new public health and welfare system that encompasses everything from disease prevention through caregiver services and that can therefore support an elderly society will be a central theme of 2025. Because the composition of the Japanese population will be transfigured by its increasing age, the issues that will be confronted in the area of public health and welfare, which are practical and not academic fields, will change considerably in response. It will therefore be essential to adopt approaches that are fundamentally different from those that have been adopted in the past when we formulate measures to combat threats to public health such as dementia, cancer, frailty and sarcopenia, and lifestyle diseases.