Daisuke Onozuka, Yuta Tanoue, Shuhei Nomura, Takayuki Kawashima, Daisuke Yoneoka, Akifumi Eguchi, Sheng Chris Fook Ng, Kentaro Matsuura, Shoi Shi, Koji Makiyama, Shinya Uriyu, Yumi Kawamura, Shinichi Takayanagi, Stuart Gilmour, I Takehiko Hayashi, Hiroaki Miyata, Francesco Sera, Tomimasa Sunagawa, Takuri Takahashi, Yuuki Tsuchihashi, Yusuke Kobayashi, Yuzo Arima, Kazuhiko Kanou, Motoi Suzuki and Masahiro Hashizume : Reduced mortality during the COVID-19 outbreak in Japan, 2020: a two-stage interrupted time-series design., International Journal of Epidemiology, Vol.51, No.1, 75-84, 2022.
(Summary)
All-cause mortality during the COVID-19 outbreak in Japan in 2020 was decreased compared with a historical baseline. Further evaluation of cause-specific excess mortality is warranted.
(Keyword)
COVID-19 / Disease Outbreaks / Female / Humans / Interrupted Time Series Analysis / Japan / Male / Mortality / SARS-CoV-2
Akifumi Eguchi, Daisuke Yoneoka, Shoi Shi, Yuta Tanoue, Takayuki Kawashima, Shuhei Nomura, Koji Makiyama, Shinya Uriyu, Masayuki Sawada, Yumi Kawamura, Shinichi Takayanagi, Stuart Gilmour and Hiroaki Miyata : Effect of emergency declaration on mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan: A social network service-based difference-in-differences approach., Science Progress, Vol.104, No.3, 2021.
(Summary)
Strong lockdowns to control COVID-19 pandemic have been enforced globally and strongly restricted social activities with consequent negative effects on mental health. Japan has effectively implemented a unique voluntary policy to control COVID-19, but the mental health impact of the policy has not been examined on a large scale. In this study, we examined the effect of the first declaration on the mental health of affected residents. We used population-level questionnaire data of 17,400 people living under the state of emergency and 9208 who were not through a social-networking-service app and applied a difference-in-differences regression model to estimate the causal effect of the declaration of the state of emergency on psychological wellbeing, stratified by job category. No statistically significant effect of the declaration was observed among all job categories. This suggests that residents' psychological situation has gradually changed, possibly influenced by other factors such as the surrounding environment, rather than the declaration itself. Given that Japan has a unique policy to control COVID-19 instead of a strict lockdown, our results showed the Japanese-style policy may serve as a form of harm reduction strategy, to control the epidemic with minimal psychological harm, and enable a policy that balances disease control and mental health. Caution is necessary that this study used self-reported data from a limited time period before and after the first declaration in April 2020.
(Keyword)
COVID-19 / Humans / Japan / mental health / Mobile Applications / Quarantine / Social Networking
Takahiro Kubo, Diogo Veríssimo, Shinya Uriyu, Taro Mieno and Douglas MacMillan : What determines the success and failure of environmental crowdfunding?, Ambio, Vol.50, No.9, 1659-1669, 2021.
(Summary)
Online crowdfunding can help address the perennial financial shortfalls in environmental conservation and management. Although many online crowdfunding campaigns fail to collect any funds due to not achieving their targets, little is known about what drives success. To address this knowledge gap, we applied a mixed-methods approach to data from 473 successful and failed campaigns hosted on the online crowdfunding platform Readyfor. We found that fundraising performance varied by topic, with campaigns on pet animal management outperforming those focussed on landscape management and sustainable use. We also found that marketing strategies associated with online findability and increased reach through social networks, increased fundraising success. However, the existence of other environmental campaigns running simultaneously, reduced the chance of success, which implies that the selecting popular topics does not always increase the likelihood of success due to increased competition. Wider applications of marketing could enhance the ability of environmental crowdfunding campaigns to raise funds.
(Keyword)
Animals / Crowdsourcing / Fund Raising / Knowledge / Probability
Koji Makiyama, Takayuki Kawashima, Shuhei Nomura, Akifumi Eguchi, Daisuke Yoneoka, Yuta Tanoue, Yumi Kawamura, Haruka Sakamoto, Stuart Gilmour, Shoi Shi, Kentaro Matsuura, Shinya Uriyu and Masahiro Hashizume : Trends in Healthcare Access in Japan during the First Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic, up to June 2020., International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, Vol.18, No.6, 2021.
(Summary)
We evaluated the impact of the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) on healthcare access in Japan in terms of the number of outpatients and hospitalized patients as well as the length of hospital stays, during the first wave of the pandemic, up to June 2020. This observational study evaluated the monthly average number of outpatients per day at hospitals, the average number of hospitalized patients per day, and the average length of hospital stays per patient, from December 2010 to June 2020, using the hospital reports data, which are open aggregated data on the utilization of hospitals from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. These numbers were compared with those from the same period of previous years, using a quasi-Poisson regression model. We found a nationwide decrease in the number of outpatients in general hospitals and hospitalized patients, particularly in long-term care beds in Japan, as well as the excess length of hospital stays among psychiatric care patients during the first wave of the COVID-19. This limited access to healthcare demonstrated the importance of the long-term health monitoring of vulnerable populations and the need for urgent management support to healthcare facilities in preparation for possible prolonged pandemics in the future.
To provide insight into the mortality burden of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Japan, we estimated the excess all-cause deaths for each week during the pandemic, January-May 2020, by prefecture and age group. We applied quasi-Poisson regression models to vital statistics data. Excess deaths were expressed as the range of differences between the observed and expected number of all-cause deaths and the 95% upper bound of the 1-sided prediction interval. A total of 208-4,322 all-cause excess deaths at the national level indicated a 0.03%-0.72% excess in the observed number of deaths. Prefecture and age structure consistency between the reported COVID-19 deaths and our estimates was weak, suggesting the need to use cause-specific analyses to distinguish between direct and indirect consequences of COVID-19.
(Keyword)
COVID-19 / Cause of Death / Humans / Japan / Mortality / SARS-CoV-2
Daisuke Yoneoka, Shoi Shi, Shuhei Nomura, Yuta Tanoue, Takayuki Kawashima, Akifumi Eguchi, Kentaro Matsuura, Koji Makiyama, Shinya Uriyu, Keisuke Ejima, Haruka Sakamoto, Toshibumi Taniguchi, Hiroyuki Kunishima, Stuart Gilmour, Hiroshi Nishiura and Hiroaki Miyata : Assessing the regional impact of Japan's COVID-19 state of emergency declaration: a population-level observational study using social networking services., BMJ Open, Vol.11, No.2, 2021.
(Summary)
Given that there are still several high-risk areas measured by EBSIR, careful discussion on which areas should be reopened at the end of the state of emergency is urgently required using real-time SNS system to monitor the nationwide epidemic.
(Keyword)
Adolescent / Adult / Aged / Aged, 80 and over / Bayes Theorem / COVID-19 / Cohort Studies / Epidemiological Monitoring / Female / Humans / Japan / Male / Middle Aged / Social Networking / Young Adult
Shinya Uriyu, Yuta Tanoue, Shuhei Nomura, Kentaro Matsuura, Koji Makiyama, Takayuki Kawashima, Daisuke Yoneoka, Akifumi Eguchi, Yumi Kawamura, Stuart Gilmour, Haruka Sakamoto, Kazuki Shimizu, Sheng Chris Fook Ng and Masahiro Hashizume : Trends in emergency transportation due to heat illness under the new normal lifestyle in the COVID-19 era, in Japan and 47 prefectures., The Science of the Total Environment, Vol.768, 2021.
(Summary)
In Japan, in response to the spread of the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19), a 'new normal' in the era of the COVID-19 was proposed by the government, which calls for thorough wearing of masks as an infection control measure in the era of the COVID-19, but related heat illness has been a great concern this summer. We applied quasi-Poisson regression models to the daily number of emergency transportations due to heat illness from 2008 to 2020 from the Fire and Disaster Management Agency, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Japan, to estimate the expected weekly number of emergency transportations from heat illness, with adjustment for their long-term trend and the weather conditions, including temperatures. We found that, at the national level, the number of heat illness emergency transports did not significantly increase or decrease from the annual trend in 2020. By prefecture, on the other hand, there were some prefectures in which the number of heat illness emergency transports was less than the average year, and most of them were in the week of August 10-16. By age group, the number of heat illness emergency transports in the 0-17 and 18-64 age groups was particularly low in some prefectures, and by severity, those in mild cases was particularly low. A caution is necessary that there is a possibility that a decrease in cases possibly associated with COVID-19 measures, such as, outdoor activity restrictions at schools/universities and cancellation of public events, may offset the possible increase in heat illness cases occurring elsewhere associated with wearing masks. Given that the end of the COVID-19 pandemic is not expected yet, continuous and appropriate awareness-raising activities to prevent heat-related illness remain important.
(Keyword)
COVID-19 / Coronavirus / Heat Stress Disorders / Humans / Japan / Life Style / Pandemics / SARS-CoV-2