“Oasis 24 – Healthy Oiso”
Summary
“Oasis 24 – Healthy Oiso” was initiated by the town mayor, who is a medical doctor. He insisted that city employees should go over to seniors’ neighborhoods if seniors are not able to come over to the Town Hall to ask for health advice. Based on his idea this project was started, firstly by gathering public health employees (public nurses and senior nutritionists) assigned in different places into one section.
Health professionals like nurses visit town facilities (community centers) in 24 districts and give lectures and consultations on seniors’ health issues. The concept is to hold “regional health drop-ins where seniors can casually visit.”
This projects aims to address the following three points.
1. Raise seniors’ awareness on their own health management.
2. Let the whole town become involved in health management programs to attain better quality of life and longer healthy years.
3. Reduce ever-increasing medical expenses.
For the seven years since the launch of the project, we listened to the voices of participants, reviewed the outcomes and came out with the most needed issues at hand. We had 984 consultation sessions and 12,584 participants. There are even seniors who have developed interests in various topics, and go over to facilities outside their community on their own initiative. We are pleased that we have been able to raise their health awareness.
Website: http://www.town.oiso.kanagawa.jp/kenko/kenkouzoushin/kenkoudukuri/index.html
Key facts
Main target group: Older people in general
Sector(s): Health
Desired outcome for older people:
Meet their basic needs
- Dementia
- Healthy behaviours (e.g. physical activity)