The importance of patients, their caregivers, and families working together with researchers in research that promotes the maintenance of people’s health as well as treatment and care of diseases is becoming widely recognized in Japan and abroad. Such activities are called “Patient and Public Involvement (PPI),” and are attracting attention as an approach to enhance the quality and social significance of research.
Unlike simple participation in research, PPI aims to involve patients and other interested parties as equal partners with researchers at various stages of the research process, from the planning stage through recruitment, analysis and evaluation, dissemination and implementation of research results. It is considered an essential element in enhancing the quality of research, as it not only deepens scientific and clinical knowledge, but also to appropriate outcome selection and dissemination of research results.

In Japan, the introduction of PPI in medical research has been promoted, especially in the field of oncology. Moreover, in the field of psychiatry, research incorporating PPI is gradually increasing, including efforts to examine the potential and challenges of PPI in research on community mental health services and Delphi surveys conducted in collaboration with various stakeholders, including people with mental illnesses. Furthermore, the development of a co-creation platform for research in the field of mental disorders has been selected as a research project by AMED in 2025, and further promotion of PPI in the mental health field is expected in the future.

In this HGPI seminar, we will invite Dr. Takuma Shiozawa, a member of the TOGETHER Project, which was established to promote PPI in the field of mental health in Japan. In this seminar, Dr. Shiozawa will share his experiences in implementing PPI in the research of mental health, the challenges he has identified, and his vision for further promoting PPI in the field of mental health in Japan in the future.

With the mission of “citizen-centered health policy,” HGPI has been continuously discussing PPI in medical research not only from a cross-disease perspective, but also in individual fields such as psychiatric disorders and dementia. Through this seminar, we hope to provide an opportunity to discuss PPI in cross-disease research and mental health research as well as its implementation in order to find solutions to advancing PPI in medical research in Japan.

[Event Overview]

• Speaker:
  Dr. Takuma Shiozawa (Project Assistant Professor, Department of Mental Health and Psychiatric Nursing, Graduate School of Health Care Sciences, Institute of Science Tokyo)
• Date & Time: Monday, July 28, 2025, 19:00-20:15 JST
• Format: Online (Zoom webinar)
• Language: Japanese
• Participation Fee: Free
• Capacity: 500 participants

■Profile:

Takuma Shiozawa (Project Assistant Professor, Department of Mental Health and Psychiatric Nursing, Graduate School of Health Care Sciences, Institute of Science Tokyo / Research Student, Community Mental Health and Legal System Research Department, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute of Neurology and Psychiatry, National Institute of Neurology and Psychiatry)

After graduating from the Department of Nursing, Faculty of Health and Welfare, Tokyo Metropolitan University in 2013, he entered the graduate school of Tokyo Metropolitan University and completed his PhD. While in graduate school, he worked as a psychiatric ward nurse at Tokyo Adachi Hospital of the Kosei Kyokai Foundation, as well as a mental health counselor at Dokkyo University Health Center and a counselor at SODA, a general incorporated association, and was involved in a wide range of psychiatric treatment and community mental health support sites. In parallel with his clinical work, he has been working as a researcher at the Department of Social Reintegration Research (currently the Department of Community Mental Health and Legal System Research) at the National Institute of Mental Health, National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry since 2017. He has been involved in policy research and practical projects related to community mental health, and has been in his current position since May 2023. His areas of expertise include community mental health, early intervention, support for young people, mental health education, and Patient and Public Involvement (PPI). He is a member of the Japanese Society for Schizophrenia Research as well as the Japanese Society of Social Psychiatry, the Japanese Society for Rehabilitation of the Mentally Disabled, the Japanese Society of Psychiatric Emergency Medicine, and the Japanese Academy of Nursing Science.