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Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Japan’s “Super-Aging Society”


Japan’s “Super-Aging Society”
Faced with a “super-aging society,” Japan has embraced the opportunity to build a resilient health care system and become a global model for other societies, writes Shunichi Fukuhara, Dean, School of Public Health, Kyoto University.

For the “old elderly,” new solutions coming into view include applications of advanced robotics—which are viewed largely positively in Japan—and new concepts in urban design, Dean Fukuhara writes in an exclusive commentary for Global Health NOW.

Making cities more friendly for aging citizens is also key. For example, Mayor Masashi Mori of Toyama, a city of 400,000 on the Japan Sea coast, has made significant efforts to limit suburban sprawl and encourage elderly to move to the center in order to take advantage of improvements to public transportation and interact with a richer social fabric.

The World Health Summit Regional Meeting Asia, Kyoto 2015 (http://www.worldhealthsummit.org/regional-meeting/kyoto-2015-english.html) will meet next week to discuss the challenge of rapidly aging societies. Speakers include: Yoshiyuki Sankai, University of Tsukuba Graduate School; Ichiro Kawachi, Harvard School of Public Health; Peter Piot, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; and Michael J. Klag, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Global Health NOW (http://www.globalhealthnow.org/news/how-to-survive-in-rapidly-aging-societies-lessons-learned-from-japan)

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