HGPI to Host the 5th HGPI Salon 2025-2026 on June 29, 2026, Exploring the Value of Healthcare in Society in the Reiwa Era

Health and Global Policy Institute (HGPI) will hold the 5th HGPI Salon 2025-2026: Looking Toward the Future of Japan’s Social Security, under the theme “Considering the Value of Healthcare in Society in the Reiwa Era,” on Monday, June 29, 2026. HGPI individual supporting members may attend free of charge. The event will feature HGPI Fellow Ataru Igarashi. Held under the Chatham House Rule, the salon will create a space for free and candid dialogue among participants. Through HGPI Salon 2025, held last year, HGPI provided a venue for forward-looking discussion. In 2026, HGPI will expand on those discussions through HGPI Salon 2025-2026. The salon will function as a platform where participants can engage freely and frankly under the Chatham House Rule, generating insights and ideas for policymaking. For the fifth session, HGPI will welcome Fellow Ataru Igarashi and deepen the discussion with participants in a dialogue format moderated by Senior Associate Asako Okawa. Event overview: The event will take place on Monday, June 29, 2026, from 18:30 to 20:30, with registration opening at 18:15. It will be held in person only at the International House of Japan, 5-11-16 Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106-0032. Please note that the venue has changed from last year. The discussion will be held under the Chatham House Rule, and the language will be Japanese only. Participation fees are free for individual supporting members and undergraduate students, and 4,400 yen for general participants, payable by credit card only. Light refreshments will be provided, and the full participation fee will be allocated to refreshments and venue operation costs. Capacity is approximately 80 people, with priority given to individual supporting members; if applications exceed capacity, participants will be selected by lottery. The event is hosted by Health and Global Policy Institute. The application deadline is Sunday, June 14, 2026, at 23:59. Speaker Ataru Igarashi is an HGPI Fellow, Project Associate Professor of Health Policy and Public Health at the Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, The University of Tokyo, and Visiting Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Data Science, School of Medicine, Yokohama City University. His specialty is pharmacoeconomics. He has worked on building data to support decision-making from multiple angles, including the development of health economics guidelines, cost-effectiveness evaluations of individual health technologies, and the construction of QOL evaluation indicators. His books include “I Don’t Understand Medical Statistics,” “I May Be Starting to Understand Medical Statistics,” and “I Don’t Understand Pharmacoeconomics.” Moderator Asako Okawa is a Senior Associate at HGPI, a registered dietitian, and a Master of Public Health. After working at Nagasaki University Hospital on food service management, nutrition management, and nutrition counseling, she also participated as a volunteer staff member in patient group events such as summer camps for children with diabetes. She later served as head of the nutrition department at a chronic care hospital, studied clinical epidemiology at the University of Tokyo’s School of Public Health, and worked as a registered dietitian at Kyoto University Hospital. Since joining HGPI in February 2024, she has been involved in projects related to non-communicable diseases (NCDs), drug pricing, drug discovery, and stable supply. Health and Global Policy Institute is a non-profit, independent, non-partisan private health policy think tank established in 2004. To realize citizen-centered health policy, HGPI brings together a wide range of stakeholders and offers policy options to society as an independent think tank. Maintaining independence from any specific political party or organization, HGPI provides new ideas and values from broad, future-oriented perspectives to help create a fair and healthy society. Since its establishment, HGPI has advanced issues that were not yet being sufficiently discussed, including women’s health, cancer control, dementia, antimicrobial resistance, regenerative medicine, and global health, contributing to legal systems, national strategies, and international policy discussions. HGPI will continue working with stakeholders to present effective health policy options for Japan and the world and to address global health and healthcare challenges.