The role of the G20 economies in global health.

The Meetings of Health Ministers of the Group of Twenty (G20) that started at the G20 Summit in Berlin, Germany in 2017 have provided a platform for the discussion of global health matters such as antimicrobial resistance (AMR), public health emergencies, and universal health coverage. Similar issues are also discussed at meetings of the G7 and the World Health Assembly (WHA). This article will examine recent data to explore the characteristics of the G20 and its potential for improving health outcomes.

Core factors promoting a continuum of care for maternal, newborn, and child health in Japan.

Providing a continuum of care (CoC) is important strategy for improving maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH). Japan's current very low maternal and infant mortality rates suggest that its CoC for MNCH is good. In this paper, we attempt to clarify how CoC and low mortality rates are being maintained in Japan, by examining the entire MNCH service provision system.

Human resources for health development: toward realizing Universal Health Coverage in Japan.

Human resources are an important factor in establishing universal health coverage (UHC). We examined Japan's health policies related to development of human resources for health (HRH) toward establishing UHC, and tried to formulate a model for other countries wanting to introduce UHC through reviewing existing data and documents related to Japan's history in developing HRH. In the results, there were four phases of HRH development in Japan: Phase 1 involved a shortage of HRH; Phase 2 was characterized by rapid production of less-educated HRH; Phase 3 involved introduction of quality improvement procedures such as upgrade education for nursing staff or licensing examination for physicians; Phase 4 was characterized by a predominance of formal health professionals.

Social work in international health and medical assistance.

Welfare issues such as the poor, children, women, and the handicapped are dealt with in the field of development assistance. Few studies, however, have discussed development assistance from a social work point of view. This study analyzes the social work aspects of development assistance through a review of 60 health projects completed by the Japan International Cooperation Agency between 2000 and 2006.