Background: We introduced a (Nursery) School Absenteeism Surveillance System ((N)SASSy) in 2009, which recorded information related to students who were absent from nursery schools and schools because of disease infection. As of the end of March, 2010, was activated it at the all schools in those prefectures. It expanded to include another 8 prefectures in the following two years.

Objective: We evaluated this system using a nationwide database (National Database of Electronic Medical Claims (NDBEMC)) that includes 96.2% of all medical claims from medical institutions in Japan.

Methods: To evaluate association among (N)SASSy and incidence, we regressed the number of disease patients on whether (N)SASSy was used in those prefectures or not and other control variables. We examined common pediatric infectious diseases: influenza; varicella; respiratory syncytial virus infection (RS); hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD); mycoplasma pneumonia (MP); aseptic meningitis (AM); erythema infectiosum (EI); exanthem subitum (ES); and herpangina.

Results: Significant effects of (N)SASSy were found on the prevalence of influenza, varicella, HFMD, MP, AM, and herpangina. When (N)SASSy started, the number of patients with these diseases declined by 53, 20, 192, 89, 73, and 38% in comparison with their respective averages.

Conclusion: We proved that negative association among (N)SASSy and the incidence of some infectious diseases. Moreover, association seems to be strong.

Background: In recent years, many young Japanese people have suffered from mental health problems leading to suicide. Social capital is considered to be an important factor affecting mental health and well-being.

Objective: We aimed to clarify how social capital is related to negative mood and hope for the future among Japanese youth.

Methods: A secondary analysis of individual data from a web-based survey (13–29 years old, 1175 Japanese respondents) was conducted. The data for this secondary analysis, “International Survey of Youth Attitude, 2013” (Office for Policy Planning on Youth Affairs, Cabinet Office, Government of Japan) was provided by the Social Science Japan Data Archive, Center for Social Research and Data Archives, Institute of Social Science, The University of Tokyo.

Results: Female respondents had a higher proportion of negative mood than males did. However, male respondents had a lower proportion of hope for the future than females did. Logistic regression analysis showed that negative mood was inversely correlated with trust in both males and females. Hope for the future was positively correlated with trust, reciprocity, the number of close friends, and the number of people with whom the individual wanted to consult.

Conclusion: The present study suggests that the attempt to enhance social capital would improve mental health and hope for the future among Japanese youth.

Objective: School refusal among students may cause parents to lose confidence in their ability to manage children’s non-attendance, which can in turn lead to their inability to facilitate the children’s return to school. Researchers have considered cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) as a viable means of boosting the self-efficacy of parents of children with various problems. Nevertheless, there has been little attention to parent’s mental health condition in this population. We developed and evaluated a parent support program to promote the mental health of parents of students with chronic absenteeism through CBT. Specifically, by improving stress management and cognitive reframing skills, it was expected to improve parental psychological well-being and their quality of life.

Methods: Using a non-randomized (i.e., single-arm) trial design, we recruited 20 parents from 18 families and divided them into groups of 4-6 members for the CBT program, which comprised 6 weekly sessions over about 3 months between October 2013 and November 2014. Treatment results were evaluated using self-reported questionnaires before and after the program (Time 1 and 2), and in a three-month follow-up period (Time 3). Parents were asked to report their mental health condition such as depression, anxiety and stress (DASS-21), coping style (The Ways of Coping Checklist), and quality of life (WHOQOL-BREF) . In addition, parents rated their satisfactory with the program contents and services.

Results: Depression and harmful self-blame significantly decreased, and positive cognitive reframing significantly increased. Furthermore, both the physical and psychological domains of quality of life improved.

Conclusions: The results indicated that the CBT parent support program was effective in alleviating parents’ mental health problems and improving their quality of life.