Writer Profile

Mari Nakamura
Research Centers and Institutes Associate Professor, Health CenterSpecialization / Nephrology

Mari Nakamura
Research Centers and Institutes Associate Professor, Health CenterSpecialization / Nephrology
When examining patients with hypertension, I conduct interviews to record symptoms and progress. When I ask a patient, "Around when did your blood pressure start to rise?" they often reply, "Since I was young." Upon further inquiry, they might say, "Maybe around college? Or perhaps a few years after I started working?" which clarifies that it was "younger" than now. However, the range of "younger days" varies greatly from person to person, making it difficult to determine the exact onset of the disease. By the time they visit as patients, treatment is often necessary, and the onset is frequently summarized by the phrase "younger days" during the interview.
At the Health Center, through health management duties for pupils, students, and faculty within ÎçÒ¹¾ç³¡, I have come to meet people in the age groups where the onset of disease is suspected. In Japan, a wide range of age groups¡ªincluding pupils, students, and working adults¡ªundergo annual health checkups. For the individual, these annual checkups are a continuum of yearly events; if their blood pressure rises gradually, it is difficult for them to grasp the boundary line themselves, and it must be hard to accurately recognize the period when the blood pressure began to rise.
Health insurance cards have been linked with My Number Cards, allowing individuals to view their medical information for the past five visits online via the Myna Portal, connecting them to their Personal Health Record (PHR), such as health checkup data. Currently, the PHRs of pupils and students within ÎçÒ¹¾ç³¡ are managed individually by each school or university, meaning the PHR is fragmented upon graduation. Lifestyle-related diseases such as hypertension rarely develop suddenly; data fluctuations occur even before the disease starts. Therefore, if the fragmented PHRs within ÎçÒ¹¾ç³¡ can be connected and managed centrally, the timing of the disease's onset can be identified.
If health checkup data can be viewed chronologically without fragmentation, it will increase an individual's health awareness and serve as an opportunity to review lifestyle habits from their "younger days." The doctors, nurses, and administrative staff at the Health Center are repeatedly conducting trial and error through daily epidemiological surveys to contribute to the evidence for health education, preventive medicine, and treatment. I hope to connect individual health checkup data with the network within ÎçÒ¹¾ç³¡ to link them to the health and medical care of many people.
*Affiliations and titles are as of the time of publication.