Juntendo University, Tokyo, established in 1838.

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Department of Public Health

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Staff

Professor & chair

Takeshi Tanigawa

My research focus is on the epidemiological studies of sleep disorders, cardiovascular disease and occupational medicine. I established the Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome (OSAS) screening system for commercial vehicle drivers in Japan and contributed to the occupational health and safety for truck drivers. I also have been working as a part-time occupational physician at the Daiichi and Daini Fukushima nuclear power plants at the Tokyo Electric Power Company for over 20 years. It brought my attention to support and to provide mental health care for the power plant workers after the accident of the Daiichi nuclear power plant after the Great East Japan Earthquake in March, 2011, and my research group presented a part of the findings in the JAMA (Psychological distress in workers at the Fukushima nuclear power plants. 2012; 308: 667-669). Our research group is currently examining psychomotor vigilance testing and autonomic nervous system testing in relation to BMI and OSAS as potential screening tools for detecting sleep disorders in the occupational as well as community setting. Our current research interest is also to find the OSAS prevalence among elementally school children as well as the association between psychomotor vigilance testing and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and OSAS.

Principal Investigators

1) Hiroo Wada (Professor), Ai Noda (Associate Professor), Kiyohide Tomooka (Assistant Professor), Setsuko Sato (Assistant Professor)

Our research interest is to determine the risk factors for Non-communicable disease (e.g., cardiovascular disease, cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). We have found that sleep disordered breathing (SDB) is one of the risk factors for cardiovascular disease as well as traffic accidents in Japan. Recently, SDB have found to be associated with psychosocial factors such as social economic status (i.e., education level, occupational status) and social network (i.e., marital status), towards the advent of the super-aged society. Cigarette smoking, heavy alcohol intake, as well as infection such as sinus infections are also known risk factors for sleep disorders. Our research goal is to find the pathological mechanisms between SDB, risk factors and Non-communicable disease using occupational- as well as the large community-based datasets.

2) Motoyuki Yuasa (Associate Professor)

My research group encompasses a wide range of global health issues. Current research topics include, Prevention and Control of Non-Communicable Diseases in Northern Thailand, Health Promotion Projects in Bolivia, and School-based Health Education Projects in multiple settings.
We also work on global health policy analysis, for example, on development of the evaluation framework for Public-Private Partnership projects in global health, and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)’s contribution to health system strengthening.
In addition to international research activities, we conducted a study tour every summer, leading a group of medical students and young researchers from Japan to the Mahidol University in Thailand to study public health issues in developing countries.

3) Naohiro Yonemoto (Project Associate Professor)

My research focuses on the burden of disease and the value of interventions using epidemiological methods and statistical approaches. I am also involved in data science, regulatory science, and health economics. My specifically interests are mental health, suicide prevention, maternal and child health, muscle diseases, and resuscitation. I am collaborating with researchers in Japan and around the world.

4) Hadrien Charvat (Lecturer)

As a researcher in the National Cancer Center (Tokyo) and at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (Lyon), my work has focused for a number of years on various aspects of cancer epidemiology, ranging from association studies and the development of risk prediction models based on cohort data to descriptive analyses of incidence and survival based on cancer registry data. My main research interest is in the development of statistical models for the analysis of time-to-event outcomes (e.g., the "mexhaz" package for the R statistical environment), and in numerical methods for mixed effect models.

Publications

  • Muraki I, Tanigawa T, Yamagishi K, Sakurai S, Ohira T, Imano H, Kitamura A, Kiyama M, Sato S, Shimamoto T, Konishi M, Iso H, Investigators C. Nocturnal intermittent hypoxia and the development of type 2 diabetes: The circulatory risk in communities study (CIRCS). Diabetologia 2010;53:481-488.
  • Shigemura J, Tanigawa T, Saito I, Nomura S. Psychological distress in workers at the fukushima nuclear power plants. JAMA 2012; 308: 667-669.
  • Tanigawa T. Obstructive sleep apnea: its prevention and screening may contribute to the prevention of hypertension, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. EPMA J. 2011; 2: 83-89.
  • Wada H, Akiyama Y, Takeda H, Nakamura M, Takizawa H. Social isolation in patients with chronic respiratory failure (CRF), undergoing long-term oxygen therapy (LTOT).  J Am Geriatr Soc 2014; 62: 1807-1808.
  • Ikeda A, Iso H, Toyoshima H, Fujino Y, Mizoue T, Yoshimura T, Inaba Y and TamakoshiA. Marital status and mortality among Japanese men and women: The Japan Collaborative Cohort Study. BMC Public Health 2007; 7: 73.
  • Yuasa M, Osato K, Miranda C, Condore J, Siles R. Cross-sectional analysis of self-efficacy and social capital among participants in a community-based healthy village project in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. BMC Internal Health and Human Right. 2015;15:15.
  • Yuasa M, Yamaguchi Y, Imada M. Contribution of Japan International Cooperation Agency health-related projects to health system strengthening. BMC Internal Health and Human Right. 2013; 13: 39.
  • Maruyama K, Sato S, Ohira T, Maeda K, Noda H, Kubota Y, Nishimura S, Kitamura A, Kiyama M, Okada T, Imano H, Nakamura M, Ishikawa Y, Kurokawa M, Sasaki S, Iso H. The joint impact on being overweight of self reported behaviours of eating quickly and eating until full: cross sectional survey. BMJ 2008; 337: a2002.

Contact Us

Address:
Department of Public Health, Juntendo University School of Medicine,
2-1-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8421, Japan
Tel: +81-3-5802-1049
Fax: +81-3-3814-0305
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