Toward a third term of Health Japan 21 - implications from the rise in non-communicable disease burden and highly...

In 2000, the Japanese government launched the National Health Promotion Movement known as Health Japan 21 (HJ21), a 13-year national health promotion policy (2000-2012) aimed at preventing and controlling non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and their underlying risk factors. After the revision in 2013 (2013-2023), the target NCDs and risk factors are being reviewed and a new strategy for the third term of HJ21 is going to be discussed. Using the latest findings from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019, this paper highlights NCDs that continue to increase health losses and preventable metabolic and behavioural risk factors. These NCDs and risk factors are associated with an increased risk of serious illness and death from the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19). The third term of HJ21 will be formulated during the continuing threat of acute health crises like the current COVID-19 pandemic and thus offers an important opportunity to renew public health efforts to halt the growing burden of NCDs in Japan. This article may serve as one of the roadmaps for the formulation of the third term of HJ21.