The population of Yamakita Town in 2017 is 10,763, and the percentage of population aged 65 and over is 36.7%. The total population of 2025 is expected to be 9,344 while the percentage of population aged 65 and over is expected to be 41.5%. As the population of Yamakita Town ages, services for the elderly will continue to increase.
From this perspective, Yamakita Town has implemented policies for the elderly toward the achievement of its goals; promotion of the community-based integrated care system, support for the healthy life worth to live, prevention of disease and injury, and improvement and spread of appropriate healthcare services. These are based on the basic principle “Living in safely and comfortably to age in place.”
For the elderly to age in place, it is important to provide home medical care and nursing care in a comprehensive manner. With this in mind, we established the Consultation Center for Coordination of Home Medical Care and Nursing Care, through cooperation among one city and five towns in the neighborhood and with the support of local medical associations.
Yamakita 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 projects to revitalize this area in order to extend healthy life expectancy of the people living in and visiting to the area.
In order to make Yamakita Town more age-friendly, we will join the projects collaborating with Kanagawa Prefectural Government and other municipalities in this area and aim to extend healthy life expectancy of Yamakita Town. Also, we will listen to the needs of the elderly, the opinions of citizens and experts, and reflect these factors on our policies. And by linking with the comprehensive plan of Yamakita Town, we will implement age-friendly projects in various fields.
(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).