The population of Manazuru Town in 2017 is 7,519, and the percentage of population aged 65 and over is 39.51%. The population of 2025 is expected to be 6,076 and the percentage of population aged 65 and over is expected to be 43.7%. As the population of Manazuru Town ages, services for the elderly will continue to increase.
Considering the above factors, Manazuru Town is implementing policies for the elderly toward the achievement of the goal “a town where people can live a healthy life,” “a town where people support each other,” “a town people share with everyone.”
Especially, we focus on the coordination of nursing-care prevention and health promotion, development of long-term care insurance services, promotion of life support, development of a community-based integrated care system with consulting support, promotion of medical care at home, and support for activities in community, providing various services for the purpose.
It is clearly expected that the number of the elderly living alone or those with dementia will increase. Therefore it is necessary to promote policies for the elderly in order to develop an environment where people live independently in their familiar community, based on the concept of community-based integrated care system which provides nursing-care, prevention, medical care, life support and housing in a comprehensive manner.
Manazuru Town is located in the Western Area of Kanagawa Prefecture, where the municipalities have a close relationship historically and geographically. Kanagawa Prefectural Government positioned this area as a “strategic area for improvement of ME-BYO” and has promoted the projects to revitalize this area in order to extend healthy life expectancy of the people living in and visiting to the area, through improvement of ME-BYO.
In order to make Manazuru Town more age-friendly, we aim to extend healthy life expectancy of the people living in Manazuru Town collaborating with Kanagawa Prefectural Government and neighboring municipalities. Also, we will listen to the needs of the elderly, the opinions of citizens and experts, and reflect these factors on policies. And developing Manazuru Town’s Elderly Health and Welfare Plan, we will implement age-friendly projects in various fields, with all sectors working together.
(ME-BYO: Rather than regarding health and illness as being mutually exclusive, the concept of ME-BYO views a person’s mental and physical condition as continuously changing along a spectrum between health and illness).