◎ Lin Jinhong
You have health insurance when you see a doctor. Now you take preventive care, participate in sports, and policies are beginning to provide positive feedback.
Move to "Reducing Risks Before You Get Sick"
The Health Coin of the Ministry of Health and Welfare was launched on October 1. People over the age of 18 can accumulate points by completing eligible health tasks such as adult preventive care, hepatitis B and C screening, publicly funded cancer screening, and vaccination. The Ministry of Sports promotes sports coins and "sweating politely" to encourage people to actually participate in sports. These policies seem to belong to different ministries, but behind them they reflect the same change: when the government invests in health, it is trying to move from "providing medical treatment after illness" to "reducing risks before illness".
Please read on...
The Ministry of Health and Welfare launched "Health Coin", which will be launched on October 1. (File photo) Such a change is necessary. As the population ages, non-communicable diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes continue to pose a health and medical burden. Insufficient physical activity is also a health risk that requires long-term improvement. No matter how advanced medical technology is, we cannot just wait for the disease to occur and deal with it; how to make more people willing to accept age-appropriate screening, preventive care, vaccination and maintain physical activity when they are healthy or in the early stages of disease is where policies can become more actively involved.
"Sweat is polite" in particular provides a direction worth observing. Through exercise tasks and rewards, "knowing exercise is important" is transformed into "willingness to start taking action." Health coins have a similar concept, transforming things that are easily postponed due to busyness, such as health checkups, screenings, and vaccinations, into feedback that the public can feel.
In addition, rewards can make people start, but they do not necessarily make people continue. This is where health education is indispensable. If the public only knows how many points they can get for completing tasks, the policy effect may remain in the short-term participation; if it is also understood that cancer screening is for early detection based on age and qualifications, preventive care is for understanding health risks, and vaccinations should be arranged according to public policies and personal conditions, rewards have the opportunity to become the entrance to understand the health system, rather than simply consumption feedback.
From issuing coins to "getting used to it and it will move"
The same is true for exercise. The National Health Administration's "National Physical Activity Guidelines" provide physical activity and safety suggestions for different ages and health conditions. The really important thing is not to suddenly take a lot of steps one day in exchange for rewards, but to gradually incorporate appropriate activities into your life according to your age, health and physical condition. Only if policies can help people gradually move from "moving for rewards" to "moving by habit" can they truly generate long-term value.
Healthy behaviors and the number of health coins available. (Tabulation by this newspaper) Therefore, in the future, when measuring the effectiveness of health coins, exercise coins, and "sweating politely", we should not just look at how many coins are issued, how many people redeem them, and how many exercise records are accumulated. We should also track whether people who originally received less screening or preventive care begin to participate, whether those who are not physically active increase their activities, and whether these behaviors can be sustained six months or one year later.
Another important topic is fairness. Digital platforms, apps and mobile phones are very convenient for recording, but they cannot leave the elderly or other ethnic groups who are not familiar with digital tools out of the system; the sports environment and health resources also vary between urban and rural areas. A good health policy not only makes it easier for people who are willing to participate to receive rewards, but also considers how to give people who have less access to health resources the opportunity to participate.
If health coins and sports policies are to be further integrated in the future, the focus will not be just on "whether the two coins are interchangeable." Health coins can be linked to preventive health care, sports coins support sports participation, and "sweating politely" promotes practical actions. Coupled with correct and easy-to-understand health information, it is possible to form a complete support from awareness, participation to continuous support.
What is truly worth accumulating is not just coins, but sustainable healthy behaviors. Taiwan already has a national health system to protect the medical safety net after the disease occurs. The next step worth doing is to put more resources into before the disease occurs. When screening, preventive care, vaccines, physical activity and health education are no longer promoted independently, but a supportive environment can be formed through cross-department cooperation, health coins, exercise coins and "sweat courtesy" are not just short-term rewards, but may become an important step in Taiwan's health policy from disease care to active prevention.
A lazy package for obtaining, querying and using health coins. (File photo, provided by the National Health Service) (The author is a public health engineer)
