The Lancet
Jun 27, 2015 Volume 385 Number 9987 p2547-2644
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/issue/current

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Editorial
Sustainable equality—a goal to aspire to
The Lancet
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(15)61144-8
Summary
2015 marks a transition point for development which is, in its own way, exhilarating. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will shortly expire, and these familiar and extensively discussed benchmarks can then be judged to have culminated in successes, failures, or opportunities against the extraordinary backdrop of the era—from the response to a catastrophic epidemic of HIV/AIDS to the profound and challenging global shifts in disease epidemiology, demography, and migration. A new set of aspirations must be fashioned to prepare the world’s people for times of continuing, indeed perhaps intensifying, change and uncertainty.

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Comment
Japan’s vision for health care in 2035
Hiroaki Miyata, Satoshi Ezoe, Manami Hori, Machiko Inoue, Kazumasa Oguro, Toshihisa Okamoto, Kensuke Onishi, Kohei Onozaki, Takeshi Sakakibara, Kazuhisa Takeuchi, Yasuharu Tokuda, Yuji Yamamoto, Mayuka Yamazaki, Kenji Shibuya
for the Health Care 2035 Advisory Panel
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(15)61135-7
Summary
Over the past half century Japan has made remarkable achievements in good population health at low cost, with increased equity.1 However, a demographic shift towards rapid ageing, the growth of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), and advances in medical technology have led to great changes in health-care needs. In the Lancet 2011 Series on Japan: Universal Health Care at 50 Years, three major challenges to Japan’s health system were identified: sustainability, governance, and responsiveness.2 In that Series, several reforms were proposed to assure the sustainability and equity of Japan’s health accomplishments: implementation of human-security, value-based reforms; redefinition of the roles of central and local governments; improvements in the quality of health care; and a commitment to global health.