A research team led by Program-Specific Associate Professor Daisuke Nishioka has, for the first time, mapped the characteristics and hospitalization risk of 1,990 children on public assistance (seikatsu-hogo) across six Japanese municipalities. By linking public assistance registers with medical assistance receipt data and following recipients for one year, the study found that 4.6 % of these children were hospitalized, with younger age groups and those holding disability certificates at particularly elevated risk. It is notable that hospitalization rates varied by household composition, including single-parent families and households with both parents working, and differed significantly between municipalities, emphasizing that the financial relief provided by seikatsu-hogo alone cannot fully mitigate health risks for children living in poverty.
These findings highlight the multidimensional nature of child poverty in Japan and call for policy measures beyond economic support to address social and environmental determinants of health. The authors recommend further research incorporating more granular data on non-recipients alongside recipients to inform targeted interventions.
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