The population of Ninomiya Town in 2017 is 28,726, with 65-and-over population at 33.6%. The population of 2025 is expected to decrease to 25,809 while the proportion of people aged 65 and over will grow to 36.7%. As the town’s population ages, more services for older people will be needed.

To deal with this trend, Ninomiya Town is implementing aging policies with the idea of “Building a town where people can age independently, safely and enjoyably.”

Central to our aging policies is the community-based integrated care system. This includes measures to create something that makes a life more valuable, to get older people socially connected and to support them in managing dementia.

In this system we organize all groups and organizations in town to be engaged in supporting older people in a spirit of caring. This includes preventive care, offering places and opportunities for them to get socially connected.

In this attempt, our town’s life-support coordinators are playing a major role in community welfare activities, including running a dementia-friendly cafe named Ninonin Cafe.

For older people to live in place, we need to provide a cross-sectional framework covering medical, nursing and welfare services, and we are working to develop such a system.

To become more age-friendly and let residents stay healthier longer, we will collaborate with Kanagawa Prefecture which promotes healthcare with the concept of “ME-BYO”, as well as our neighboring municipalities.

Also, we will listen to the needs of the elderly, opinions of other residents and experts, and reflect them for our policies. We will link our aging measures with the Town’s comprehensive plan, so that we can implement our age-friendly measures on a broader basis.

(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)