Every local government in Japan is seeking to have an integrated health, medical and welfare system to take care of an increasing number of the elderly.
An attempt to develop such a model system called ‘Fukushi no Mori’ was begun in 1987 in Koga City, Ibaraki Prefecture. It was not until 1993 that the land for the project was acquired and the final plans for the arrangement of facilities were drawn up. In March 1994 construction got under way.
This paper discusses the strategies for developing an integrated health, medical and welfare system in this city. The results of a number of detailed research studies undertaken by the authors are also described and discussed.

Every local government in Japan is seeking to have an integrated health, medical and welfare system to take care of an increasing number of the elderly.
An attempt to develop such a model system called ‘Fukushi no Mori’ was begun in 1987 in Koga City, Ibaraki Prefecture. It was not until 1993 that the land for the project was acquired and the final plans for the arrangement of facilities were drawn up. In March 1994 construction got under way.
This paper discusses the strategies for developing an integrated health, medical and welfare system in this city. The results of a number of detailed research studies undertaken by the authors are also described and discussed.

Every local government in Japan is seeking to have an integrated health, medical and welfare system to take care of an increasing number of the elderly.
An attempt to develop such a model system called ‘Fukushi no Mori’ was begun in 1987 in Koga City, Ibaraki Prefecture. It was not until 1993 that the land for the project was acquired and the final plans for the arrangement of facilities were drawn up. In March 1994 construction got under way.
This paper discusses the strategies for developing an integrated health, medical and welfare system in this city. The results of a number of detailed research studies undertaken by the authors are also described and discussed.

Several factors have been reported as risk factors for the development of osteoporosis. In this study, we aimed to examine the relationship among lifestyle factors, biologic factors, and bone mineral density (BMD) using structural equation modeling (SEM). The subjects in the present study consisted of 866 postmenopausal Japanese women aged between 40 and 80 years old. In the analysis by the SEM, we employed a multiple basic model. As the structural variables, lifestyle factors and biologic factors were selected. The goodness of fit index (GFI) of the final model was 0.991 and the Akaike’s information criteria (AIC) showed the lowest value in the peripheral models. The degree of association between biologic factors and BMD was −0.576 (direct association), 0.012 (indirect association), and −0.564 (total association). With regard to the correlation between lifestyle factors and BMD, the degrees of association were 0.085, −0.084, and 0.001, respectively. This study defined a pilot model for factors influencing BMD. Although is remains necessary to conduct further analyses with more valid measurements and constructs, this model indicated that the correlation between BMD and lifestyle factors was lower than that between BMD and biologic factors.
Relationship by association ; Models ; Life Style ; structural equation model ; Japanese language

Every local government in Japan is seeking to have an integrated health, medical and welfare system to take care of an increasing number of the elderly.
An attempt to develop such a model system called ‘Fukushi no Mori’ was begun in 1987 in Koga City, Ibaraki Prefecture. It was not until 1993 that the land for the project was acquired and the final plans for the arrangement of facilities were drawn up. In March 1994 construction got under way.
This paper discusses the strategies for developing an integrated health, medical and welfare system in this city. The results of a number of detailed research studies undertaken by the authors are also described and discussed.

Mortarity due to pesticide poisoning for prefectures in Japan is examined according to the vital statistics in 1979-1981. The atlases of pesticide poisoning mortality for prefectures in Japan are presented.
There is a wide range in mortality among prefectures and the highest mortality is 17.8 times as high as that observed in the prefecture which showed the lowest mortality. Regional characteristic is observed in the mortality. Northern part of Kanto Area and the southern part of Kyusyu Island show high mortality and low mortality is observed in Hokuriku Area.
The ratio of the deaths due to pesticide poisoning to those due to automobile accident also show wide range among prefectures. The highest ratio is 38.3% and the lowest is 2.4%. The ratio shows similar regional characteristic to that observed in mortality.

Disease risk among elderly smokers is considered to be doubled due to their smoking habits and age as compared with elderly non-smokers. The investigators conducted risk assessments of smoking for respiratory symptoms among elderly people.A questionnaire survey on smoking habits and respiratory symptoms was conducted among 3, 000 persons of 56 years of age and over who were randomly selected from suburban residents in a prefecture in Japan in October, 1997. A total 1, 954 or 65.1% of individuals responded, consisting of 42.8% for men and 57.2% for women, with an average age of 73.6 years.In addition to descriptive analysis, multiple logistic regression analysis was conducted. The results are summarized as follows:Smokers accounted for 28.1% of men and 3.6% of women. Among all age-groups, the highest rate of smokers was observed in men of 56-69 years old (34.7%) which was lower than the national average rate for the 60-69 year-old group (56.1% of men and 14.5% of women in ‘97). The odds ratios and 95 percent confidence interval (95%CI) for “having phlegm every day” and “having phlegm for more than 4 days a week” among smokers were 2.06 (95%CI=1.41-3.01) and 2.77(95%CI=1.80-4.27). Significantly higher odds ratios among smokers were also observed for “wheezing” and “shortness of breath when hurrying”.Odds ratios for some respiratory symptoms including “having phlegm for more than 4 days per week” among inhalers were significantly high compared with non-smokers, whereas those among non-inhalers were not significantly different from 1.0.Odds ratios for symptoms of phlegm and wheezing were significantly higher (Odds ratio ≥2.0) among heavy smokers (Brinkman Index [B. I.] >900) compared to non-smokers, while odds ratios of the same symptoms were not different from 1.0 among light smokers (B.I. ≤500).
symptoms <1> ; Respiratory ; Smoking ; Elderly ; Male population group