We hope that you, your family and colleagues stay safe during the COVID-19 pandemic. The 27th International Health Evaluation and Promotion Association (IHEPA2020) and the 4th World Congress on Ningen Dock, which were scheduled to be conducted on November 26–27, 2020, in Yokohama, Japan, will now be held from November 26–December 11, 2020, via live web streaming, due to the current COVID-19 epidemiological situation in Japan. The virtual conference will be organized on demand format based on participants’ availability and schedules.

It was more than 80 years ago when the unique comprehensive health checkup system named Ningen Dock was developed in Japan. "Ningen" means human in Japanese, while an enclosed area in a port for loading, unloading, and repair of ships is called a dock. Since this is similar to our health checkup system in which people visit an institute for health checkups, we adopted the name "Ningen Dock."

At present, Ningen Dock has become very popular in Japan, and each year more than 400 million people visiting the Ningen Dock institutes located across the country. The development of this system may be considered as one of the reasons for Japan’s high life expectancy.

Although there has been a growing interest in preventive medicine globally, no similar systems have yet to be established in Western countries, such as the United States and Europe. However, in recent years, medical checkup systems similar to Ningen Dock have gradually emerged in some Asian countries/regions (China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Russia, etc.).

Earlier, two independent international meetings related to medical checkups the International Ningen Dock meeting and the International Health Evaluation and Promotion meeting; henceforth, these societies will merge their activities and hold joint meetings to raise awareness for the people’s health.

The historic first joint international conference will be held coinciding with the 61st annual meeting of the Japan Society of Ningen Dock. This meeting will be titled "Bringing the Japanese Ningen Dock Health Checkup System to the World," and its primary purpose will be to discuss the efficacy, usefulness, and future of this unique health checkup system.

Remarkable advancements have been witnessed in the diagnostic methods prevailing in this area. There has been a transition from conventional checkups, in which subjects aged from 30s to 90s uniformly use a "conveyor belt," type system to "personalized docks" considering the subject’s age, gender, histories, and so on. Moreover, new methods for the early detection of cancer using blood or urine, AI-based image diagnosis methods that eliminate oversight, and the introduction of genetic testing methods are evolving and advancing day-by-day. It has also become possible to establish a scientific basis for the usefulness of these techniques.

Thus, we can truly say that this health checkup system is a new star of clinical preventive medicine in the new era. I hope that those interested in disease prevention will join us from all over the world, including the US, Europe, and Asia.

I look forward to your participation in this memorable international conference.