Developing Inclusive Community Platforms: A Catalyst for DEI Community.

Developing inclusive communities is important to enhance individuals' well-being yet this brings the challenge of actively engaging and leveraging the diversity of residents in communities. Such significant social challenges are prominent in Japan, a focus of this article, as the most advanced aging society in the world and thus relevant to European and other countries. This paper explains a major government initiative that takes an innovative approach through leveraging a social technology, a Digital Twin of a community, to understand and address inclusiveness of a community leveraging population approach. The purpose of this letter is to provide researchers and policy makers insights into the approach taken to stimulate reflection on the potential for adaptation and replication.

Association between meaningful activities at home and subjective well-being in older adults with long-term care needs: A cross-sectional study.

For this study, we examined whether engaging in meaningful activities at home is associated with subjective well-being (SWB) in older adults with long-term care needs according to their preference for going out. We distributed a self-administered questionnaire to long-term care facilities in Japan and performed a linear mixed-effects model regression analysis of the responses. The dependent variable was SWB, and the independent variables were the number of meaningful home activities, preference for going out, and the interaction between them. In our survey (n = 217), we found that both number of meaningful home activities (B = 0.43; 95%CI: 0.17, 0.70) and its interaction with preference (B = -0.43; 95%CI: -0.79, -0.08) were associated with SWB. These results suggest the importance of engaging in meaningful activities at home for older adults who do not prefer going out. We should encourage older adults to participate in activities that match their preference.

Self-rated Changes of Health Status during Stay-at-home Orders among Older Adults Using the Long-term Care Insurance System of Japan: A Cross-sectional Study.

OBJECTIVES: To reveal self-rated changes of health status during stay-at-home orders among older adults and to verify whether decrease in frequency of going outdoors during these orders was related to self-rated changes in health status. METHOD: A self-completed questionnaire for older adults was provided in 2 dayservice facilities and a nursing station. We operationally defined health status with 4 domains (motor function, oral and swallowing function, depression, and social networks) and designed the questionnaire to determine self-rated changes in health status using factor analysis. After factor analysis, regression analyses were conducted. Dependent variable was each factor score (self-rated changes of health status), and independent variable was decrease in frequency of going outdoors. RESULTS: Approximately 80% of participants answered that their health status had "worsened" in motor function (75.0%-87.2%). Moreover, more than 70% of participants answered "worsened" in "Feeling energy" and "Getting together and speaking with friends" (72.3% and 75.7%, respectively). Regression analyses demonstrated that, after adjusting for covariates, the decrease in frequency of going outdoors was related to self-rated changes of motor function and friend network. CONCLUSION: During stay-at-home orders, older adults felt deterioration in their motor function, in feeling energy, and in their friend network, especially people who had decreased their frequency of going outdoors felt more deterioration in their motor function and in their friend network.