Conclusion. This study suggests that investments in formal international legal processes can be effective and appropriate, even when the outcomes are unclear from the start. The FCTC negotiation process coincided with a rise in domestic policy adoption in the direction advocated by WHO. However, there remains the need to improve outreach and diffusion to lower-income countries in the area of tobacco control, and likely other areas of chronic disease control. Aims: The number of the unemployed has been increasing in Japan, as well as in other countries, due to the economic turn-down in 2008. The unemployed might have lower socioeconomic status (SES), thus have poor mental health, and difficulty in seeking help for mental health problems. This study aimed to clarify subjective social class, mental health, and help seeking behaviors among the employed who looked for a job, comparing with those currently employed. Methods: A community-based epidemiologic study of common mental disorders, the World Mental Health Japan 2002-2006 Survey, were conducted of random samples of residents in 11 municipalities (N=4,130), with using the WHO-CIDI 3.0. A subsample of the respondents (the part 2 sample, N=1,682) was asked to determine their social class, self-rated health, psychological distress (K6), 12-month DSM-IV mental disorders, and help-seeking behaviors for mental health problems. Analyses were conducted, comparing these variables between the currently unemployed who look for a job (N= 35) and the currently employed (N=997), adjusting for sex, age, and education, with considering the sampling weight. Results: The unemployed had significantly lower education and household income than the employed (p<0.05). The unemployed reported poorer physical and mental health status than the employed (p=0.08 and p=0.06, respectively), while there was no significant difference in prevalence of psychological distress or mental disorders. The proportion of those who sought help for mental health problems was not significantly different between the two groups; however, as a reason of the delay in seeking help, the unemployed more tended to concern "how much money the treatment would be cost"(p=0.07). Conclusions: The unemployed were at lower SES, had poor physical and mental health status, and delayed their help seeking because of their concern on treatment fee. Backgrounds and purpose Limited evidence has been available for regional socio-economic status (SES) and health in Asian countries. Whether regional SES influences individual cause-specific risk of death remained to be examined. The aim of this multilevel study is to evaluate whether regional SES influences cause-specific mortality independently from individual SES.