Fellow-Klasse 2018-2019 Prof. Dr. Harald Fuess

Arbeitsvorhaben am Marsilius-Kolleg

Health and the State in Japan

My main academic interest in participation in the Marsilius-Kolleg is to broaden and deepen my expertise into the fields of medical history, public health and aging society studies within my primary regional expertise of Japan while drawing on some of my previous work on family, the state as well as history of epidemics, knowledge transfer and consumer society. Japan was the first country to industrialize outside of the Western world and now has achieved one of the highest levels of health and physical well-being as well as being the nation with the world´s greatest longevity. In contrast to other countries like the USA, it operates a health and welfare system at rather low cost. In recent decades, the demographic transformation led Japan to be one of the fastest aging societies. “Learning from Japan” in the twenty-first century no longer means Toyota-style manufacturing techniques but to understand how Japan develops solutions to the demographic challenges all societies are facing in the future. Nevertheless, it is surprising that there is a scarcity of research in Europe on the development of Japanese public health and long-term government policy underpinning these transformations. I expect that my exploration of health issues in Japan would benefit from a dialogue with Heidelberg colleagues in the medical and public health fields such as Till Bärnighausen but also colleagues in economics like Axel Dreher, political science, sociology or cultural studies whose main area of geographical expertise is in other parts of the world.