2013-09-06

Key documents on Social Determinants of Health now available in Japanese

A group of Japanese experts on social determinants of health (SDH) has translated several key documents related to SDH into Japanese. These include the following WHO documents: 1) the executive summary of the Final Report of the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health; 2) the World Health Assembly resolution on reducing health inequities through action on the social determinants of health (WHA62.14); 3) the summary report of the World Conference on Social Determinants of Health (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 19-21 October, 2011); 4) the World Health Assembly resolution on the outcome of the World Conference on Social Determinants of Health, and 5) the Adelaide Statement on Health in All Policies, which resulted from a WHO-supported consultation. Selected chapters from the WHO report, “Equity, social determinants and public health programmes”, edited by E. Blas and A.S. Kurup, are also being translated.

These translations effectively remove the language barrier in accessing these essential documents for many Japanese policymakers and scholars. It is expected that these will serve as valuable resources as national efforts are made to achieve the renewed “Healthy Japan 21” targets, which include the reduction of health inequity through action on the social determinants of health. The translations were prepared by a Japanese research group led by Dr Toshiyuki Ojima (Hamamatsu University School of Medicine) and Dr Katsunori Kondo (Nihon Fukushi University) with funding from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan. Several members of this group are regular contributors to the WHO Kobe Centre’s work on ageing and health metrics. Permission for the translations was granted by WHO and a technical review of the translation was performed by the WHO Kobe Centre.