This research examined sex and age differences in the factorial structure of the health-related lifestyle index for elderly. A multiple indicator structural eqation model including three first-order factors : social, psychological, and pysical exercise and one second-order factor is proposed to account for the dimensionality of the health-related lifestyle index. Analysis of covariance structures was used to assess the factorical invariance of the index. We analysed the factorial invariances by testing hypotheses involving the equivalence constraints of one or more parameter matrices in the samples ; the mele and the famele, the young-old and old-old. Data for research came from the 1996 Otofuke Survey. Sex and age differnces were not found in the factorial structure of the index.

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The purpose of this study was to examine the reliability and validity of Assessment of Child Care Environment (ACCE) Scale. ACCE has been designed since 1996 to identify the risks of child care environment and to assess the environments at homes of children up to the age of two years. All the studied 266 subjects were children at age of about 18 months of age and their main caregivers, participating in the compulsory health check-up. The subjects responded to an interview and an observation. To examine the reliability and validity of this scale, content validity through the confirmatory factor analysis, criterion oriented validity through correlation between the ACCE and HOME, test of physical development, teaching scale and educational level of the parents was examined. As for the reliability of ACCE was also examined with Cronbach α. Assessment of Child Care Environment (ACCE) Scale for Korean were reflected HOME Inventory (Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment, no date, Caldwell, BM), EES (Evaluation of Environmental Stimulation, 1992, Anme), and the cultural characteristics of the Korean society. From a pool of over 80 items, 18 were selected through field tests , pass rate and item analysis. The results were as follows ; 1) As for content validity, ACCE is composed of four factors : appropriate stimulation to development , social-cognitive, physical stimulation and appropriate environment, 2) As for the criterion oriented validity, a significant correlation between the ACCE and HOME (0.58), test of physical development (0.28), teaching scale (0.32) as well as educational level of the parents was confirmed. 3) The reliability of ACCE was also confirmed with Cronbach α 0.82.

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The purpose of this study is to clarify the change of play and movement area of congenitally blind infants in their home acompanied with the improvement of their locomotion ability. In first investigation, types of play and play area on 31 congenitally blind infants (aged 7 to 53 months) who had no physically impairment other than blindness were recorded by their parents. These records were classified into 30 categories and a questionaire for comparative study was made. In second investigation, a comparative study of congenitally blind and sighted infants on their playing behavior was performed. The subjects were 11 congenitally blind (aged 12 to 28 months) infants without physical nor mental impairments and 11 sighted infants aged 7 to 24 months. The results showed that there were difference between blind and sighed infants in the occurence rate of play. Some play were seen in the blind infant only who had high locomotion ability, although they were seen in the sighted infants who had low locomotion ability. It was shown that there were several kinds of play only seen in blind infants but not in sighted ones.

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This study has clarified the relations between leisure activities and the maintenance of physical functions by two-year follow-up Study. The subjects were 656 elderly aged over 60 (281 male, 375 female). They had ability to walk, use the toilet, bathe and eat without assistance. The items of questionnaire were about their age, sex, disease, Physical function and leisure activities. The results were as follows ; 1) The elderly who continued to have leisure activities maintained significantly higher physical functions by chi-square test. 2) Significant correlation was shown between leisure activities and maintenance their physical functions by logistic regression analyses after controlled age, sex and diseases. Further research must be done to clarify the relation between physical function and more detail contents of leisure activities, such as kinds of activities and involveIIIent to the activities.

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It has been one of the key issues to develope effective methods to inform directions for the people with disabilities in health social services. Libraries expect to take roles as the information processing centre, which is situated near users in their community, and as a part of powerful sattelite center for health social services. The purpose of this study was to clarify the trend of universal accessivility toward library of pablic universities in all over Japan. In consequence, following tasks were pointed out. The outcome was brightly indicated that it will be important to promote not only barrierfree consolidation for institutional hardwere, but also assistive service of corresponding effective usage as softwere support, for instance reference service, voiced reading, humansupport, personnel education et al.

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The purpose of this study is to examine the effects on health welfare through the attitudes to handicapped peoples and related problems of young peoples who experienced integration at the time of a high school. It is examined through the comparison with young persons who has not experienced integration at the time of a high school. The result of this study showed that 1)There was not the sense of incongruity to integration with blindness (children whose eyes are not seen). 2) Even the experienced group of integration recommended a special school (a School for the handicapped) for the education of handicapped childrens. The main reasons recommend a special school are not discrimination and a prejudice but for support theirself in the future of them and inadequate environment of the ordinary school. 3) Experience of integration education was connected to the improvement of the knowledge regarding handicapped but it did not reach even to active acceptance of handicapped and related problems. 4) Two groups which the experienced group of integration and not all pointed out alike that a life environment for handicapped is not enough yet, especially the information and employment problems for them.

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In this study, we investigated the physical, psychological and social factors affecting the self-rated health by company workers in their fifties in order to obtain information that may be useful for their health maintenance and for in-company health education. The items surveyed were gender, age, presence/absence of a spouse, presence/absence of children, educational background, type of occupation, income, self-rated health,and four physical, four psychological and four social factors affecting the self-rated health. Surveys were conducted at 23 business locations of 19 companies located in four areas of Japan : Hokkaido, Kanto area, Kansai area, and Kyushu. The subjects were 1,418 workers (1,256 men and 162 women) who were employed in the surveyed companies. For statistical analysis, the X^2 test was used to investigate the correlation between the self-rated health and the replies to the items of the questionnaire concerning individual attributes, physical factors, psychological factors and social factors affecting the self-rated health. Moreover,using self-rated health as the dependent variable and physical, psychological and social factors as the independent variables,multiple regression analysis was performed by the step-wise forward regression to determine the factors that affect the subjective evaluation to self-rated health of workers in their fifties. The results showed that the physical factors of "regularity of exercise" and "smoking" ; psychological factors of "sufficient/insufficient sleep" "sufficient/insufficient rest" and "degree of social stress" ; and the social factors of "involvement/noninvolvement in sports teams of clubs" and "number of friends" were related to the self-rated health.

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The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between social activities and life satisfaction of the elderly using causal model analysis. The subjects were 550 (age 65 to 84) selected stratifield random sampling at O town in Hokkaido. The quationnaire were demographic items (age, gender and years of education), health status, informal and formal social activities and life satisfaction. The fitness of the model, which consisted independent variables being informal and formal social activities and explanatory being life satisfaction, was examined by the analysis of covariance structure. The results of analysis was goodness that GFI was 0.956, AGFI 0.906, RMSEA 0.074. Informal social activity was associated with life satisfaction significantly but formal activity was not.

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Purpose of this study is to inquire the related factors to the awareness for safety living environment of the aged living alone. Method : After getting consent, 173 cases of 65 years and older (29 males, 144 females) living alone were interviewed with a structured questionnaire.Results and discussion : 31.2% of the samples had concerned to maintain safety living environment. "Installation of hand rails" and "renovation of the bath and toilet" were the most concerned points. "Renovation of the entrance and passageway" was the least concerned point. The factors "The number of years of living alone", "educational background", "interest in programs and articles which related to health issues", "a two-storied house" and "the style of toilet at home" of the samples who had concerned to maintain safety living environment made significant difference compare to the group of sampies who had not concerned to maintain safety living environment. 87.3% of the aged living alone desired to continue to live at home by them self. It is essential for the elderly to maintain safety living environment to keep their life at their own home. To raise awareness of the elderly toward importance of maintenance of safety living environment, various community activities for the elderly and mass media such as TV and radios should be more used as media. Information about use of social resources to get support for equipment and renovation also should be more provided.

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