About us

Japanese society is facing major health challenges such as super aging and increasing health gap. To address the situation, health services including hospitals and clinics are expected to introduce major reorientation to the roles they play.

Firstly, health services need to incorporate health promoting activity into their practice in addition to conventional works of treatment and nursing. Super aging society is a society where majority of the population is elders who may be living with multiple chronic conditions or disorders. In addition to “treatment of diseases”, health services are expected to “contribute efforts to prevent diseases and build a community for people to live healthy life as a human even with illness or disorders, fulfilling the demands in time of community-based integrated care system”.

Secondly, health services should actively address the Health Gap issue to overcome the situation. Health gap is increasing at global scale, and overcoming the gap has now become an urgent matter globally. It requires works by different sectors of society, and there are many that health services can contribute. In Canada, the medical society is involved in the efforts to improve the gap. And Japan HPH Network (J-HPH) has been in touch with Canadian doctors for some time to learn from their examples. In their interview room, they check on the socioeconomical status of patients, and if necessary, support is provided by using social resources or referring patient to other experts. In community, they are active in a variety of advocacy works in pursuit of Equitable healthcare. Such advocacy action by health services is needed in Japan, too.

In 1989, the World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe (WHO/Europe) initiated an international network called the International Network of Health Promoting Hospitals & Health Services (HPH) in order for health services to address such issues from the perspective of health promotion. Today, the International HPH consists of more than 600 members mainly from Europe and Asia, and is active in global exchange of best practices/examples of health promoting activities, global multi-organizational studies, and preparation of documents including Self-Assessment Manual, the standards for health promoting activity.

In October 2015, the HPH Network was also established in Japan as J-HPH, holding a vision to make “contribution to achievement of Healthy City and of Well-being, Fairness and Equity of society in collaboration with people, community, business corporations, NPOs and local governments.” As specific works, we exchange ideas of health promotion activity for patients, staff, and community people. National conference is organized, and researches and publicity works are promoted. As a multi-organizational joint study, we work on a “pilot study to develop a simple interview tool for better understanding of the living status of patients,” and make reports at conferences in Japan and abroad. As a product of this study, we published the “Tools for Healthcare Providers and Care Workers: Coordinating Financial Support" and "Case Study Examples". In addition, we extend our exchange with Northeast Asian networks in South Korea and Taiwan. Furthermore, it has become evident that health promoting activity contributes to improved healthcare quality. Now, we are developing a study on how to enhance Equitable healthcare quality by incorporating the concept of Equity into conventional scheme of healthcare quality.

Japan is blessed with rich experiences of health promotion activity led by medical institutions which, by global standard, are regarded as the leading examples. Our experience of health promotion in super aging society will be beneficial to other countries soon expected to face the reality of aging society. We, J-HPH Network, is committed to carry on the experiences established by our predecessors and make contributions in Japan and abroad to bring about a Well-being, Fair and Equitable society through health promoting activity.

We sincerely hope that more health services would join us in this network.