In response to the rapid rise in the aging population and low birth rate, there are growing demands of professionals such as nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists who provide aged care at nursing facilities for health promotion or community based home care services based on increasing social needs. They are required to possess more specialized and comprehensive knowledge and skills. Also, facing to the super-aging society, relationships of oral health and systemic condition; lower activities of daily living (ADL) associated with malnutrition resulted from oral frailty or aspiration pneumonia stimulated by oral microorganisms, have increased in importance. Though the significance of the effect of oral care to systemic care becomes recognized, institutions that offer comprehensive research and education of oral-systemic treatment are still insufficient in number. Therefore, Program of Health Sciences that is few in number in Japan was created as a result of the merger of two divisions in the Graduate School of Biomedical and Health Sciences, for the purpose of developing education and research in systemic health care that is comprehensive and innovative.  
Collaborating among academic staff in the fields of nursing (nursing), rehabilitation (physical therapy and occupational therapy), and oral health science (oral science and oral engineering) which enable to found an educational system offering a broad range of academic disciplines, the program provides higher education to meet the needs of the times.   
Program of Health Sciences pursues to nurture highly-advanced medical professionals who can take leading roles in advanced team health care through collaboration / integration beyond the conventional academic and research fields and deepening of basic research.
 

The program aims to cultivate the following personnel:

•  Nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists, dental hygienists and dental technicians who can cope with enhanced / diversified health care and management as advanced medical professionals
•  Specialists / instructors at health facilities on the above professions
•  Educators / researchers at educational research institutions
   

In order to promote health maintenance for citizens, the program aims to the following personnel:

• Educators / researchers who can nurture students to possess creativity / future oriented thinking, extensive knowledge and advanced research / problem solving abilities on health sciences including disease prevention, functional recovery and nursing care support
• Internationally active personnel who can also transmit updated information on health care, medical care and welfare

1. Nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists, dental hygienists and dental technicians who can cope with enhanced / diversified health care and management as advanced medical professionals, and specialists / instructors at health facilities on the above professions
2. Educators / researchers at educational research institutions
3. Proceeding to doctoral courses