On March 8th, our project organized a meeting with the representatives of cities and wards that have collaborated with us in implementing the Japanese Study on Aging and Retirement (JSTAR).
The meeting was held at Hongo Campus at a lecture room belonging to the Graduate School of Public Policy (GraSPP).
Its main purpose was to inform the representatives of local governments about the results our project has obtained from JSTAR, and to offer them suggestions for possible policy improvements, based on the empirical data gathered through the survey, by pointing out the problems JSTAR data indicate in their communities and on the country level. Another important objective was to hear about the needs and issues in health and social welfare that these local governments experience and tackle with daily.
The first part of the meeting consisted of presentations by our principal coinvestigator Prof. Hidehiko Ichimura, Project Professor Naohiro Ogawa and co-investigators professors Yasuhiko Sawada, Emiko Usui and Hideki Hashimoto, as well as our researcher Taiyo Fukai. Aside from the recapitulation of the characteristics of JSTAR and its potential for policy recommendations, the presenters addressed different aspects of population aging, such as its impact on health systems, the rise in the number of cases of dementia and its causes, or the untapped work potential by the elderly in Japan.
The second part consisted of presentations by the representatives of the local governments, mostly focusing on their initiatives regarding health and public hygiene and care for the elderly. This was followed by a frank and open discussion about issues in the provision of medical and care services that could and should be addressed at the community level, and the problems local governments would like to have researchers examine in the future.
Out of the ten local governments that have participated in JSTAR in the past several years, eight attended our meeting: Naha, Tosu, Tondabayashi, Hiroshima, Shirakawa, Adachi, Sendai and Takikawa.
We are very grateful for the participation as well as the constant help provided by all the ten administrative units involved in the implementation of the JSTAR survey.
Click here to view the meeting program (In Japanese)
MEETING PARTICIPANTS