The Atlas of Health Inequalities in Japan

Front Matter ....Pages i-xxix Introduction (Tomoki Nakaya)....Pages 1-7 The Shape of Japan: Backgrounds, Materials and Methods (Tomoki Nakaya, Keisuke Fukui, Yuri Ito, Keiji Yano, Yuzuru Isoda, Naoki Kondo)....Pages 9-27 Deaths Across Life Courses (Tomoki Nakaya, Yuri Ito, Kazumasa Hanaoka)....Pages 29-72 Deaths from Cancer (Yuri Ito, Yoshikazu Nishino, Seiki Kanemura, Tomoki Nakaya)....Pages 73-160 Deaths from Circulatory Diseases (Ryozo Matsuda, Shigeru Inoue, Hiroyuki Kikuchi, Yuri Ito)....Pages 161-245 Other Major Causes of Death (Takahiro Tabuchi, Mayuko Yonejima, Tomoya Hanibuchi, Tomoki Nakaya)....Pages 247-295 Synthesis (Tomoki Nakaya, Yuri Ito)....Pages 297-305 Back Matter ....Pages 307-343 This new health atlas of Japan presents a series of maps about the health of the contemporary Japanese population, i.e. detailed maps of health indicators in small areas using cartograms. This is the first comprehensive small-area based health atlas about contemporary Japan using vital statistics from 1995-2014. Each map is supplemented with concise explanations written by leading epidemiologists and health geographers in Japan. The book employs various cutting-edge methods in spatial epidemiology, Bayesian spatial smoothing for the reliable mapping of mortality indices, advanced cartographic transformations using the concept of aerial cartograms, and summary statistics of socioeconomic health inequalities. The atlas highlights geographical aspects of social gradients in health by comparing mortality maps with distribution of deprivation index during the recent long-lasting economic stagnation period of Japan known as the lost decades. This health atlas will be a useful resource for international comparisons between Japan and other advanced countries in terms of health and related socioeconomic disparities between regions. It will be of interest to public health practitioners, administrators, researchers and students working on health geography and public health.