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Waseda University’s Associate Professor Yuri Hosokawa (Faculty of Sport Sciences), in collaboration with Professor Tatsuro Amano from Niigata University, recently produced two children’s educational videos: “The Role of Sweat” and “Your Body and Hydration.” Unlike most children’s videos related to heat-illness prevention, which primarily concentrate on informational content and lack insight from experts, these videos go above and beyond in their effort to significantly and successfully improve children’s behavior towards and awareness of their bodies’ hydration levels, a key element in preventing heat-illness. Professor Hosokawa underscores behavioral change starting from a young age as being more important than simple information retention. As such, she shared that the video materials were produced with cues to encourage behavioral changes. Taking the project one step further, Professor Hosokawa and Professor Amano also worked closely with a graphic designer to create videos that were interesting and accessible for children. The videos are currently being shown in select elementary schools in Japan and during children’s sports events, where they have received much praise.

Click to view the video.

Click to view the video.

Professor Hosokawa’s passion for health is not only evident in these videos, but also through her research and personal history. Her research interests include preventing sudden death amongst athletes, exertional heatstroke, thermoregulation, and more, and she heads the Sports Performance and Optimization Lab at Waseda. A thread can be seen linking her past experiences to her current career and research interests. Her fascination with sport sciences stemmed from receiving treatment for an injured ankle when she was on the girls’ soccer team in high school in the U.S., which was her first interaction with an athletic trainer. She was eventually introduced to the word “kinesiology” (the study of muscle mechanics and movement) by her teacher which served as a catalyst towards her interest in the field.

After receiving her bachelor’s degree in sport sciences from Waseda University, Professor Hosokawa pursued her master’s and PhD studies in the U.S. with a focus on athletic training. While she was studying in the U.S., she learned of two occurrences of heat stroke amongst high school students near where she lived. The cases had distinct outcomes. Unfortunately, only one of the two patients survived. The main distinction for the survivor was the presence of an athletic trainer. Through this experience and coming from Japan where athletic trainers are not considered medical professionals, Professor Hosokawa felt the need to make a difference regarding the perception of athletic trainers and raise awareness of the importance of sport science.

Professor Hosokawa at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics

Her efforts in the U.S. and Japan came together at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, where, at the recommendation of her colleagues in the U.S., she was recruited for her expertise by the International Olympic Committee. She served as an expert and helped with the preparation and medical care for heat-related illnesses. She provided consultations for medical doctors who were more used to working in a hospital setting using her experience in sports medicine and athletic training to help ensure that elite athletes coming from across the globe would have access to proper health care during the gruelling heat of the Japanese summer. In fact, the Tokyo Olympics ended with no heat-illness-related hospitalizations.

Her impact on health care is also felt through her other projects, as she and her lab conduct research to ensure athletes’ safety while training, particularly in light of global warming and continued record-breaking heat throughout the world. One of their projects in collaboration with the Japan Rugby Federation, Sugadaira AED For Everyone (SAFE), has the goal to equip every sporting field in Sugadaira, Nagano, which is a popular training area for sports teams, with an AED. To better prepare privately managed training areas, having an AED readily available in the event of cardiac arrest is a necessary step to ensure effective first aid. This project has the potential to significantly impact the lives of all the athletes who train every year at Sugadaira. To ensure that the healthcare system is at its most efficient and effective during the high season, Professor Hosokawa and her team also investigate avenues to support the regional healthcare systems.

Through her efforts not only as an individual but in collaboration with others, Professor Hosokawa is making a positive change in sports and health care. Her mission to provide the necessary research and information serves the whole community from families with young children to professional athletes and athletic trainers. She does this while raising awareness of the necessity of having information backed by concrete research in order to inspire lasting behavioral change. Additionally, her drive extends to establishing her Safety and Performance Optimization lab as a leader in providing quality supervision and care for athletes in Asia. By setting the stage to practice sports and healthcare to their fullest potential, Professor Yuri Hosokawa is an example to many, a truly inspiring trailblazer in athletic training and health care.

*This article was written by the following Student Contributor:
Cassandra Raymundo
School of International Liberal Studies