On September 20, 2023, the Health and Global Policy Institute (HGPI) Kidney Disease Control Promotion Project held an advisory board meeting for an initiative titled, “Establishing Kidney Disease Control Measures with Patient, Citizen, and Community Engagement and Collaboration”.
In order to contribute to the promotion of policies for chronic kidney disease (CKD), which has become a new national disease, HGPI has been implementing the Kidney Disease Control Promotion Project since 2022. The need for CKD countermeasures is gaining momentum, as evidenced by its inclusion in the Basic Policies for Economic and Fiscal Management and Reform 2023, and it is expected that CKD policies will be further implemented on a regional basis and equalized nationwide.

At this Advisory Board meeting, opinion leaders from industry, government, academia, and the private sector gathered from all across Japan to discuss the challenges and solutions to the following six issues, which were identified based on interviews conducted in advance by HGPI with local governments regarding CKD measures.

The discussion points are as follows:

• Encouragement of patients to more frequently contact medical institutions based on health checkup results , and promotion of patient awareness in the prevention of serious illnesses
• Raising awareness among family physicians regarding cooperation in medical diagnosis
• Improved coordination between medical specialists
• Collaboration and policy promotion across different diseases
• Policy evaluation and target setting for CKD control by local governments
• How to acquire and share information in the horizontal application of good practices by local governments

A policy proposal based on the meeting discussions will be released at a later date.

■Advisory board members (title omitted; in Japanese syllabary order)

Yuuichi Ishikawa (Professor, Department of Food Sciences, College of Life Sciences, Ibaraki Christian University)
Kojiro Ueki (Director, Diabetes Research Center, National Center for Global Health and Medicine (NCGM))
Akiko Uchida (Chief nurse, Seirei Sakura Citizen Hospital)
Naoki Kashihara (Chairman, Japan Kidney Association / Director and Specially-Appointed Professor, Kawasaki Geriatric Medical Center）
Iwao Kurose (Executive Director, Japan Medical Association)
Takeshi Shukunobe (President and CEO, PPeCC; Power to the People with Chronic Conditions)
Koichi Tamura (Head, Department of Medical Science and Cardiorenal Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, Yokohama City University)
Akira Fukui (Lecturer, Division of Nephrology and Hypertension, Department of Internal Medicine, Jikei University School of Medicine)
Masashi Mukoyama (Professor, Department of Nephrology, Faculty of Life Sciences, Kumamoto University)
Toshiki Moriyama (Professor, Health and Counselling Center, Osaka University)
Kensuke Yoshimura (Head and Specially-Appointed Professor, Center for Next Generation of Community Health, Chiba University Hospital / Representative, COV-Navi)