Author: Paul

A paper by Project Researcher Hiroshi Habu and Professor Naoki Kondo was published in F1000Research on June 30, 2025. It explores the challenges of applying Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital to public health and epidemiology. Drawing on public health, epidemiology and cultural anthropology, the authors identify five core challenges: 1. the epistemological divergence between Bourdieu’s focus on power structures and public health’s focus on health promotion; 2. the need to consider intervention-oriented cultural capital concept; 3. the need to assess cultural capital at the collective level; 4. the need for cultural capital concept that encompasses human nature beyond the social space; and 5. the unclear and inconsistent definitions of culture across research fields.

To address these challenges, the study proposes a new theoretical framework that introduces “cultural determinants of health,” “cultural well-being” and “contextual validity,” laying the groundwork for “cultural epidemiology,” a quantitative approach to evaluating culture’s role in health outcomes. These insights offer a foundation for future empirical research and policy development that integrate cultural factors into health interventions.

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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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A study led by Associate Professor Akira Kyan of the University of the Ryukyus (formerly of Kyoto University), in collaboration with Assistant Professor Koryu Sato (Keio University, Faculty of Policy Management) and Professor Naoki Kondo (Kyoto University, Department of Social Epidemiology), found that a quiz-based incentive campaign delivered via a health app significantly increased vegetable intake among residents of a Japanese city.

As part of a long-running health communication campaign, 786 participants answered quizzes on vegetable nutrition and earned points that could be exchanged for product vouchers. Participants who completed all three quizzes consumed 10.7% more vegetables than non-participants.

Using multiple regression analysis and dietary data from the previous year (from 605 individuals), the study confirmed a statistically significant increase in vegetable consumption among frequent quiz participants.

These findings provide strong evidence that gamified, incentive-based interventions delivered through digital toolscan support improvements in dietary behavior and contribute to the prevention of noncommunicable diseases.

Article: Kyan A, Sato K, Kondo N. Increased vegetable consumption in Japan using an incentivized health communication campaign with a quiz. J Nutr Sci 2025 Apr 2; 2(14): e30.

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