Abstract
The purpose of this research was to clarify the needs of community care systems for the elderly in urban and rural areas and to determine the community-based differences. Additionally, the directionality of system-making by the communities was investigated. The subjects were elderly people living in A Ward (urban area) and B Town (rural area) in Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. The results indicated that the need for "quality and quantity in the systems" received the highest percentage of responses. In A Ward "economic help" was the second highest, but in B Town "I do not want to trouble others" was the second. In A Ward and in B Town, the percentage of the elder-only families that had needs for community care was higher than that of other families. Additionally, those A Ward elderly tended to be younger than the others. When the data from the two regions was compared, the percentage of the elderly people in B Town who were working during the year before the investigation was higher than that of A Ward. The following are suggested from these results. It is necessary to strengthen the resident's cooperative relationships in urban areas so that the elderly can participate in social activities. The rural area fulfills this requirement, but it is necessary to enhance the social welfare system in farming-village communities so the senior citizens can use it without psychological uneasiness.
