Health Evaluation and Promotion
Online ISSN : 1884-4103
Print ISSN : 1347-0086
ISSN-L : 1347-0086
Volume 42, Issue 5
Displaying 1-6 of 6 articles from this issue
Original Articles
  • Yoshiaki Miyauchi, Haruhiko Nishimura, Hiroshi Inada
    2015 Volume 42 Issue 5 Pages 479-491
    Published: 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: October 01, 2015
    JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS
     Metabolic syndrome has become a significant public health problem worldwide, and Specific Health Checkup and Guidance (SHCG) on this syndrome began for the people aged 40 to 74 in Japan in 2008. To support this large undertaking with information technology, we have introduced ideas based on the Bayesian estimation in data mining technology and proposed a Bayesian network scheme connecting the information from physical examinations and daily lifestyle questionnaires. In this paper, we focused on data from physical examinations and questionnaires for the 2 years before SHCG was initiated to measure interannual transition rates between the support levels assigned to examinees without SHCG interventions. We introduced a novel 4-bit representation with 16 states, treating body shape, blood lipids, blood glucose, and blood pressure as equal binary factors, and analyzed relationships between the support level, physical examination, and daily lifestyle questionnaire. Our results demonstrate an improvement in our previous Bayesian network scheme to include stratified support levels and 16 complementary states to measure health status. Furthermore, we evaluated the time lag for daily lifestyle measurements to affect physical examination values through the interannual combination of the data. The time lag was found to be approximately 1 year, and assessing daily lifestyle with consideration for this point is important for SHCG. In addition, we applied this Bayesian network to a case and showed its utility in allowing an examinee to improve his or her lifestyle by demonstrating individual predictions. Through the efforts described above, we confirmed that the Bayesian network for SHCG has the potential to be an effective support tool for health guidance regarding metabolic syndrome.
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  • Mizuki Matsushita, Asuha Watanabe, Chiaki Kusanagi, Ikuyo Kimizuka, Ka ...
    2015 Volume 42 Issue 5 Pages 492-499
    Published: 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: October 01, 2015
    JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS
     In our hospital, echocardiography had been only performed for participants undergoing yearly medical exams when they request it (“Request group”). However, in 2013, we started a new policy and procedure, in which a doctor recommended participants have an echocardiography if they are found to have one of the following: a significant heart murmur, a moderate-to-severe electrocardiogram abnormality, or an apparent chest x-ray abnormality (“Additional group”). Three hundred forty-one of 2,666 participants (12.8%) who had a thorough medical checkup underwent echocardiography.
     After starting this new procedure, the ratio of participants who underwent echocardiography increased. The 19 participants in the Additional group were of a higher percentage (22.4%) for being in need of further detailed examinations and treatments than were the 22 participants (8.6%) in the Request group. There were participants who had high-risk illnesses such as a left atrial myxoma in the Additional group.
     This new policy of actively recommending that participants have an echocardiogram based on their precise medical examinations might contribute to their benefit in the long run.
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Lectures
43rd JHEP conference 2015
  • Shigeaki Hinohara
    2015 Volume 42 Issue 5 Pages 500-506
    Published: 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: October 01, 2015
    JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS
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  • Kazushige Masuda
    2015 Volume 42 Issue 5 Pages 507-512
    Published: 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: October 01, 2015
    JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS
     There is an urgent need for Japan to ensure the future sustainability of its social security system. Amid the increasing financial burden of medical care, pensions and social welfare due to the rapidly declining birthrate and aging population, a comprehensive reform of the social security and tax system was decided by the Cabinet in February 2012. Six months later, related laws including a raise in the consumption tax as a stable source of revenue for social security were approved.
     The Japan Revitalization and Growth Strategy, launched by the Abe Administration in 2013, contains three action plans. One of these is the Strategic Market Creation Plan, comprising four themes one of which is prolonging the nation’s healthy life expectancy, creating a society where people can live a healthy life as they grow old, by enhancing preventive care services and health management.
     The Japan Revitalization Strategy also requires all health insurance organizations to analyze data such as health insurance claims and health check-ups to develop a project program called “Data Health Plan to Maintain and Improve the Health of Subscribers based on Analysis”. However, many medical insurers are suffering financial problems due to the heavy contributions to the medical care system for the elderly and have been forced to cut their staff.
     Under these conditions, health check-up facilities with much experience of health screening and guidance are expected to play an important role as described in the guideline for the Data Health Plan released jointly by the Ministry Health, Labour and Welfare and the National Federation of Health Insurance Societies.
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  • Tadahiro Umeda
    2015 Volume 42 Issue 5 Pages 513-521
    Published: 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: October 01, 2015
    JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS
     The Industrial Safety and Health Act, revised on the 25th of June 2014, requires employers to implement the stress check.
     The stress check is not a “screening examination” for mental disorders such as depression.
     The main purpose of the stress check, primary prevention, is carried out by one of two methods: individual support and/or group analysis.
     Individual support acts to raise the employee’s awareness of personal stress levels, reducing the risk of mental health disorder.
     Group analysis utilizes the results of individual support along with an evaluation of the stress source in the workplace in order to improve the workplace environment, thereby reducing the stress risk factor.
     Conventionally, secondary prevention and tertiary prevention were the main measures of workplace mental health.
     This shows that aspect of risk management wherein the company placed the highest importance on developing mechanism and supporting employees already stricken with mental health disorder.
     Conversely, the newly introduced stress check is based on fundamental primary prevention, making it a uniquely different approach.
     It has been pointed out, as well, that the lessening emphasis on the development of human resources in the workplace is a factor in the increased risk of mental health issues among the workforce.
     It is important to consider that the human resource is one of the main key role of the management resource of the company.
     It is expected that effects are greatly different when just placing stress check as one of the usual mental health measures or using the opportunity of the stress check effectively from varied aspects.
     In addition to managing occupational health administration, cooperation with workplace human resource administration is vital in effectively implementing the stress check system.
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