Cost-Benefit of Health Promotion: Will It Pay Off? Japan’s Venture Against Metabolic Syndrome

Abstract

As health care is increasingly financed from public funding, insurers and the government are naturally interested in controlling health care expenditure over the long term through health promotion and prevention of lifestyle-related diseases. However, the accumulated evidence on the cost-benefit of health promotion is scarce and, although it is safe to assume that any forms of intervention will save health care expenditures in the long run, some forms of intervention are far more costly than the savings they are expected to achieve. Japan launched an ambitious plan to control the growth of health care expenditure through health guidance against metabolic syndrome, although the preliminary nationwide controlled trials had shown a slight inflationary effect on health care expenditure during the first year after the interventions. According to the projections proposed by the government, the newly introduced Health Screening/Guidance for Metabolic Syndrome will prove to be cost-beneficial. Such cost-benefit will be proved when, and only when, the conditions of the projection prove to be right.