Providing the program for 1 million people worldwide by 2030.

Hirosaki University Center of Innovation

In order to contribute to the reduction of premature deaths from non-communicable diseases (especially strokes, ischemic heart diseases, diabetes and frailty) in Japan and the world, Hirosaki University Center of Healthy Aging Innovation is committed to the following:

• We will establish a highly effective health literacy improvement programme, 'QOL Health Checkup Programme', based on the findings of cohort studies conducted over many years in Aomori Prefecture, where premature deaths from non-communicable diseases have been appearing most frequently in Japan, the world’s most aged country.

• We will provide the programme for 1 million people worldwide by 2030 to help reduce disparities in health and health literacy among the world. We have started in Aomori, then we will expand to all of Japan and the emerging and developing countries that are following Japan in social aging.

The QOL Health Checkup Programme is developed by science and is characterised by:

• Specifying the health risks and lifestyle issues of individuals.

• Motivating them immediately.

• Providing education to enhance their health literacy, including nutrition, according to the types of issues.

• Supporting them to practise healthy lifestyles in their real lives.

• Visualising the results of efforts through physical and lifestyle changes.

In terms of nutrition, the programme will focus on improving excessive salt intake, inadequate vegetable intake, obesity and malnutrition in the elderly.

We will establish the programme and prove its sociomedical usefulness by 2023.

We will try to deliver the programme mainly at:

• Workplaces, where we can spread the programme along with the policy of health and productivity management. We will target 500,000 employees by 2030, mainly those at small and medium-sized workplaces that could not afford health promotion activities independently.

• Retailers, where we can reach citizens of various ages, even in rural regions. We will provide 500,000 people by 2030 with the programme, as well as the daily support for healthier shopping.

A novel protocol of the programme called COOP Healthier Shopping Support started in 2020 and is now under operation. We will evaluate and publish its usefulness in 2023.

We will establish an organisational structure to sustainably operate the programme in 2022 with funds from the national government, the local governments, the workforce employers, the health insurers, the food retailers and the providers of healthcare services or products.

By 2023, we will build a platform to collect, share and analyse real-life data on health and nutrition generated by the programme and use it as the common infrastructure for win-win cooperation between the industries, the governments, the academia and the citizens.

By 2030, we will develop 50,000 personnel who can play a leading role in health promotion at each local region, workplace, retail location and other area so that we can operate the programme for a wide range of people.