Health Statuses of People in Poverty Receiving Public Assistance in Japan: A Scoping Review.

Background: Promoting health and well-being is essential to ensure dignified lives of the entire population, including those living in poverty. Guaranteeing the human right to health is a critical responsibility of social security policies. To address emerging issues associated with poverty, the Japanese government has implemented a welfare program known as public assistance-seikatsu-hogo. However, financial welfare programs may not fully mitigate health risks due to the complex impact of poverty on health. Although a global systematic review of the health status of public and social assistance recipients has been conducted, it did not include any studies from Japan. Furthermore, evidence for the development of health support strategies for Japanese recipients remains scarce. This scoping review aims to identify the current situation and potential issues concerning the health of recipients.

Methods: PubMed was searched for articles published before November 2023. Of the 357 articles identified, 56 were included. Among those included, 35 used the individual status of receiving public assistance as an exposure variable, 13 considered public assistance recipients as the study population, and 8 used the prefectural proportion of the population receiving public assistance as an environmental predictor.

Results: We found that public assistance recipients tend to have more disadvantageous health and well-being statuses than the general population, as reported in the global systematic review. Health inequalities were also observed among recipients based on their sociodemographic characteristics. In Japan, public assistance recipients face several health risks and are at a disadvantage compared with the general population.

Conclusions: The distribution of risks is heterogeneous among recipients, despite the minimum income protection and financial benefits in health and long-term care use. Further studies to identify the effects of public assistance policy on the health of the impoverished population, evidence-based discussions, and reform of social security policies are warranted.