The inequalities in health among groups of socioeconomic status constitute the challenges for public health. Lower mortality and morbidity is associated with almost any positive indicator of socioeconomic status. The negative health effects of smoking have been raising serious concerns all over the world and the previous studies have indicated the significant relationship between smoking and socioeconomic status. The present study aimed to examine the income elasticity of education and tobacco smoking by using the 2000–2005 Family Income and Expenditure Survey in Japan. The results are very interesting. The elasticity of education being consistently greater than unity suggested that education is very important demand for Japanese household. By contrast, an increase in income leads to a fall in the tobacco smoking suggesting that people living in the household of lower socioeconomic status were likely to consume more tobacco. This finding would help to anti-smoking strategies by taking into consideration of the people living in the low income households. The implementation of these anti-smoking strategies should be very important in view of human health as well as economic matters.

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In order to investigate the appropriateness of the health promotion program targeting to the slightly frail aged, the authors analyzed the data of 5,193 aged who received the screening test for dependency in 2008. After calculating the descriptive statistics for basic characteristics, such as age, sex, and results of screening test, the factor associated with degradation of dependency level were analyzed by a logistic regression model. If a person becomes a user of LTCI covered services, this person is evaluated as “become dependent”. Higher age category, male, bad mobility score, higher tendency to stay indoors (Tojikomori) and bad dementia score were detected as statistically significant risk factors in the current study. It is interesting that use of preventive services was detected as a risk factor of degradation of dependency level. Mismatch of expectation of users and organized services, supply side induced demand and mismatch between LTCI eligibility assessment and 25-items screening test were considered as possible reasons. In order to ameliorate the effectiveness of program, it is necessary to reconsider the content of screening test and preventive services.

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The treatment of patients with diabetes mellitus (DM) is enormously expensive in developed countries because of its high prevalence and complications. DM patients often experience microvascular and macrovascular complications that affect their postoperative course, and are at significantly higher risk of postoperative infection and postoperative cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. In addition, few studies have evaluated inpatient care resource use in DM patients who have undergone gastrectomy for gastric cancer. The purpose of this study was to quantify differences in inpatient care resource use and postoperative complications among insulin-using diabetes mellitus patients (IDM), non-insulin-using diabetes mellitus patients (NIDM), and patients without diabetes mellitus (NDM) who had undergone partial gastrectomy for gastric cancer. We analyzed data from 1,805 patients who had undergone partial gastrectomy for gastric cancer. The numbers of patients in the IDM, NIDM, and NDM groups were 82 (4.5%), 61 (3.4%), and 1,662 (92.1%), respectively. The IDM group had a significantly longer length of stay, higher total charge, and higher risk of postoperative complications than the NDM group. However, the NIDM group did not have increased inpatient care resource use or a higher incidence of postoperative complications compared with the NDM group. Healthcare providers should consider the differences in healthcare resource use and postoperative complications between IDM and NIDM patients.

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We present a novel motivational campaign (Walking Mileage) to promote continuous walking by making donations based on pedometer-recorded steps to a social welfare organization with the aid of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) solutions and devices. The aim of this report was to perform an age-related analysis of the participation rate, the persistence rate, and the daily steps taken as part of this campaign held in the workplace. Of the 1,254 participants (982 men and 272 women) recruited from 4,434 employees at a pharmaceutical company located in Tokyo, Japan, 1,124 completed the campaign, which lasted for 52 wk. Participants in their 50s tended to walk more and to have higher persistence rates than participants in their 40s, 30s, and 20s. The step counts for weekdays were larger than those for weekends and holidays.

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