In its capacity as a non-profit, independent, non-partisan health policy think-tank, Health and Global Policy Institute (HGPI) views all issues related to population aging starting with dementia as health policy issues on the global level and has made ongoing efforts from this position. In particular, the HGPI Dementia Policy Project has worked continuously to promote global policies centered around people living with dementia and their family members in pursuit of its mission to “Promote multi-stakeholder collaboration to advance dementia policy.”

In July 2022, we presented comprehensive policy recommendations titled “The Future of Dementia Policy 2022: Deepening Dementia Policies Centered on People Living with Dementia and their Families to Lead Global Society” in which we provided suggestions regarding Japan’s path forward for further reinforcing measures for dementia in the international community from the four perspectives of the social environment, care, research, and political leadership. Among those recommendations, one item that will be particularly important in research will be to “Construct an R&D platform that facilitates citizen participation.” In Europe and the United States, there are accelerating efforts that aim to establish public and private partnership (PPP) platforms that unite people living with dementia, governments, and industry in efforts to direct funding and human resources for the advancement of dementia R&D. This global trend has also been recognized by the Government of Japan and related parties in this field, and in 2017, HGPI presented recommendations on the need for a PPP in Japan. These recommendations share findings of our survey research that suggest efforts to establish a domestic PPP must not only move forward with focus solely on R&D and clinical perspectives if that PPP is meant to pursue the goal of achieving a dementia-friendly society, but that it must also reflect the perspectives of people living with dementia and have jurisdiction that encompasses social system reform and social implementation, particularly for the healthcare and long-term care systems, community development, and housing. However, real progress has only been made in certain areas of those recommendations, and an integrated PPP has yet to be established. We must build an integrated platform that spans healthcare and long-term care, and encompasses efforts to build an inclusive society.

Given this backdrop, in FY2022, we held roundtable discussions and a symposium where we gathered people living with dementia, their family members, industry representatives, prominent members of academia specializing in various areas from basic research and clinical research to research design, the Government, and patient advocate leaders from other disease fields. We utilized those opportunities to identify discussion points and future prospects for building an R&D system in which research is advanced together with people living with dementia and their family members. In the future, we plan to establish opportunities to discuss and examine more concrete actions for creating a People living with dementia-Public and Private Partnership (PPPP).

In addition to establishing a system for promoting R&D at the national level, rather than conducting each research program independently, it will also be essential for multi-stakeholders to collaborate with communities on the local level. A number of research programs in various regions are currently advancing with collaboration from communities. At the upcoming HGPI Seminar, we will focus on one such program from the Akita University Advanced Research Center for Geriatric and Gerontology (ARGG), which is conducting research that involves community members as well as collaboration from the Government, professional associations, and private companies. ARGG places particular emphasis on returning the results of research to community members, and ARGG Director Professor Hidetaka Ota actively pursues having face-to-face conversations in the community. At this HGPI Seminar, he will explain the process of building such systems for promoting research and introduce current initiatives and future prospects for this area. 

*Please note that this seminar is available in Japanese only. An English report of this event will be published in due course.

[Event Overview]

• Speaker: Dr. Hidetaka Ota (Professor and Director, Advanced Research Center for Geriatric and Gerontology, Akita University (ARGG))
• Date & Time: Thursday, March 9, 2023; from 18:30 to 20:00 JST
• Format: Online (Zoom webinar)
• Language: Japanese
• Participation fee: Free
• Capacity: 500

■ Speaker Profile:

Hidetaka Ota (Professor and Director, Advanced Research Center for Geriatric and Gerontology, Akita University (ARGG))
Dr. Hidetaka Ota graduated from the school of Medicine, Kumamoto University, and received training of internal medicine at the Tokyo University and Tokyo Metropolitan Geriatric Hospital. He was researcher at Signal Transduction Laboratory, M.G.H, Harvard Medical school. After graduating the University of Tokyo Graduate School of Geriatric Medicine, he worked as assistant professor and specially appointed lecturer at Department of Geriatric Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, University of Tokyo, and from 2015, as senior manager, Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED), and specialist for dementia, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. He was appointed to his present position in 2018.