2018 Volume 7 Issue 2 Pages 80-90
Objectives: To support future health services, we developed a scale that reflects “local community attachment” and clarified its correlation with health-related quality of life and other factors.
Methods: A total of 1,000 participants aged 50–69 years who were residents of B City in a prefecture near Tokyo answered the self-administered written questionnaire. The contents included components of a scale that is used to measure local community attachment, physical attributes, relationships, and associations with the residents of the area. Analytical methods were used to assess the association between the respective variables and the scores of the “local community attachment” scale and its four subscales.
Results: The “local community attachment” scale was correlated to sex, living arrangement, the years of residence in the community, degree of acquaintance with local inhabitants, presence of avocational activities in local circles, degree of desirable acquaintance with the inhabitants of the area, intention to participate in local activities, social support, and health-related quality of life. The results suggested that attachment to the local community between the groups differed depending on the four subscales.
Conclusions: This study suggests that “attachment to the local community” contributes to health maintenance in middle-aged individuals and cultivates an individual’s attachment to an area. Supporting factors were correlated to the constructive concepts of the four subscales based on community-based mutual assistance and exchange.
