This study aims to examine the factors related to daily conversations among older adults requiring care, considering personal attributes and social relationship factors. A questionnaire survey was conducted with a random sample of 539 individuals from both residential care facilities and home-based care recipients. Path analysis was performed using dummy variables to understand the overall picture of factors related to the life world communication scale (LWCS). Multiple imputation was used to address missing values in the scales employed. The results indicated significant paths to LWCS from conversations with family members (SC=.17~.13) and women (SC=.23~.13) in both facility and home settings, conversations with friends in the facility setting (SC=.20), and utilization of day services and home visit nursing in the home settings (SC=.18~.26). The LWCS showed significant paths to the interdependent happiness scale (SC=.35~.36) in both facility and home settings and to center for epidemiological studies depression scale (SC=-.14) in the facility setting. The daily conversations affected the quality of life in older adults requiring care and the level of depression among those requiring residential care.

  This study examined the association between intention to consult a public consultation service (e.g., community general support centers and social welfare council) and community-level social capital (SC). We used questionnaire data from the Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study. Participants were functionally independent older people aged 65 years or older in 39 cities and towns throughout Japan. Using data for 124,014 individuals (572 elementary school districts), we conducted a multilevel logistic regression analysis. The results showed that even after adjusting for such factors as demographic characteristics and individual-level SC, older people living in districts where “social cohesion” of community-level SC is high were more likely to have the intention to consult a public consultation service. On the other hand, an association was also shown that older people living in districts with higher “reciprocity” of community-level SC were less likely to intend to consult a public counseling service. The association between intention to consult and community-level SC were different depending on the SC index.

  Early evacuation of vulnerable older people during disasters is an important challenge. It is necessary to comprehend their understanding of disasters and the chronological development of their evacuation efforts. Drawing from protection motivation theory, this study investigates vulnerable older people who experienced a heavy rainfall disaster to describe a typology of chronological development in their intention to evacuate. Our investigation considers factors such as physical and cognitive function to understand the circumstances and characteristics of their evacuation behavior. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews with reference to mixed methods research. Participants’ consent was obtained after explaining that participation in the study was voluntary and that non-participation carried no disadvantage. Eighteen participants were classified into four clusters via cluster analysis according to how information about the disaster was obtained, evaluation of threat level, evaluation of response, and protection motivation. The analysis revealed a cluster of participants who carried out horizontal evacuation early, having formed a correct understanding of the situation and protection motivation based on threat level evaluation and response. Another cluster showed evaluation of response but failed to form protection motivation. These findings suggest that threat level evaluation and response evaluation must be balanced to form protection motivation and to carry out early evacuation.

  We examined social participation patterns and associated factors among 2,095 older adults who registered with 52 Silver Human Resources Centers (SCs) nationwide.

  A latent class analysis was conducted using eight categories of social participation: job, volunteer work, and hobby circle within the SCs; and job, volunteer work, neighborhood meetings, community events, and self-managed groups outside the SCs. Multinomial logistic regression analysis was conducted with social participation patterns as the dependent variable and basic characteristics as the independent variables.

  The results showed five patterns of social participation: [type1. Only job], [type2. Neighborhood meeting], [type3. Multiple participation], [type4. Volunteer], and [type5. Hobby circle]. The results suggest that the following factors are more likely to increase the probability of belonging to type 2-5 than type 1: not being unemployed in the past, absence of frailty, longer tenure at the SCs, and no economic motive for participating in the SCs.