Improvements in the performance of health personnel are being sought in an effort to achieve universal health coverage (UHC). Emphasis has thus been placed on the development of health personnel as part of a national UHC strategy throughout the world. In light of this, we planned the present symposium as a means of reviewing the current nursing trends in Southeast Asia and to investigate the issues facing the practical development of nursing personnel, as well as the future directions of nursing support, with a deliberate focus on UHC.
  At the symposium, changes in health issues in Japan, the contributions of nursing professionals in achieving UHC, and the educational programs required by Japanese nursing personnel for international cooperation were first presented. Next, the status of health personnel in Southeast Asia was reviewed. In particular, the status of the regulatory frameworks regarding nursing personnel and the measures for enhancing the practical ability of nurses through legal means were introduced separately for Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Myanmar. Subsequently, as case examples of emerging countries in Southeast Asia, the nursing policies of Thailand and Indonesia were reviewed, measures for improving the practical ability of nurses through legal means in Indonesia were introduced, and support for enhancing networks within autonomous regions was proposed.
  International cooperation in the field of nursing requires strategic and comprehensive support for the development of nursing personnel in healthcare systems variable to economic growth and the means by which to achieve this are diversifying. Indeed, the symposium indicated the importance of responding to the diversity of support by enhancing networks of Japanese individuals involved in international cooperation and providing support for the enhancement of independent networks in Southeast Asia.

 Since the 1960s, Japanese nurses have been working as international nursing collaborators with or for the people in developing countries in order to promote health through transferring nursing knowledge and skill. However a number of nurses reported that they did not have enough competencies as international nursing collaborators. The objectives of this study were: a) to describe the experiences of Japanese international nursing collaborators whose mission was transferring nursing knowledge and skill and b) to determine their learning needs as international collaborators, and to design educational programs (graduate program) based on the results of survey. The participants of this study were twenty-seven nurses who had had an international collaborative mission and stayed in a developing country for more than one year. Semi-structured group or individual interviews were used in order to describe activities process and leaning needs as international collaborators. The interview data were analyzed using content analysis from the viewpoint of competency and learning needs. Nurses reported needs in two major areas: Fundamental Competences and Knowledge, and Required Competences for Development of International Collaborative Tasks. Fundamental Competences and Knowledge consisted of nine components: (1) cross-cultural experiences, (2) acceptance of cultural differences, (3) professional experience, (4) degree and qualifications, (5) philosophy of nursing, (6) language, (7) interdisciplinary knowledge for international cooperation activities, (8) knowledge about own project, and (9) knowledge on theories of international cooperation. Required Competences for Development of International Collaborative Tasks consisted of thirty components which were divided into four phases (personal competences, preparation and planning phase, implementation phase, and after project.) Based on the result of this survey the investigators designed the international nursing graduate program. The program has started from the academic year of 2005 at the investigators' college. The progress of students' learning and outcomes of these educational programs should be monitored using formative evaluation.

Background: No consensus exists regarding which anthropometric measurements are related to bone mineral density (BMD), and this relationship may vary according to sex and age. A large Japanese cohort was analyzed to provide an understanding of the relationship between BMD and anthropometry while adjusting for known confounding factors. Methods: Our cohort included 10,827 participants who underwent multiple medical checkups including distal forearm BMD scans. Participants were stratified into four groups according to age (≥50 years or <50 years) and sex. The BMD values were adjusted for confounding factors, after which single and partial correlation analyses were performed. The prevalence of osteopenia was plotted for each weight index (weight or body mass index [BMI]) class. Results: Cross-sectional studies revealed that weight was more favorably correlated than BMI in the older group (R=0.278 and 0.212 in men and R=0.304 and 0.220 in women, respectively), whereas weight and BMI were weakly correlated in the younger age groups. The prevalence of osteopenia exhibited a negative linear relationship with weight among older women ≥50 years of age, and an accelerated increase was observed with decreasing weight in older men weighing <50 kg and younger women weighing <60 kg. When weight was replaced with BMI, the prevalence was low in most subgroups classified by weight. Conclusions Weight, rather than BMI, was the most important indicator of osteopenia but it might not be predictive of future bone loss.