Associate Professor Daisuke Matsumoto and Professor Katsuhiko Takatori of the Department of Physical Therapy, Kio University conducted a four-year prospective survey of late-stage elderly people who are at particularly high risk of becoming in need of nursing care. For the first time in Japan, it was clarified that there is a disparity in professors, and it was published in the journal of IJERPH (International Environmental Research and Public Health Journal).
The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare is currently promoting the "Second National Health Promotion Campaign in the 21st Century (Health Japan XNUMX (Second))" with the goal of extending healthy life expectancy and reducing health inequalities.Extending healthy life expectancy means preventing people from becoming in need of nursing care.Much research has been done on factors related to the risk of becoming in need of care.On the other hand, regarding health inequalities, comparisons between urban and rural areas and results between prefectures and municipalities have been shown, but in order to reduce the disparity, it is necessary to consider in smaller regions in each municipality. Will be done.
Therefore, this time, we conducted a four-year follow-up survey of about 5000 elderly people living in the city of A, and investigated the factors related to the new certification for long-term care.As a result, it was found that even if age, gender, illness, and frail * are adjusted as related factors, the risk of becoming in need of nursing care is about 4 times higher in a specific elementary school district.In addition, multiple types of social participation have been shown to reduce risk by about 1.7%.
From this result, it is pointed out that by grasping and analyzing the actual situation of small areas that are more closely related to daily life, it may lead to a clue to the solution of long-term care prevention.In the future, he plans to continue research to clarify the causes of regional disparities by adding perspectives such as socio-economic factors and environmental factors (easiness to walk).
* A state in which mental and physical functions decline with age and become more vulnerable to health problems.
