Objectives: In today's aging societies, subjective well-being is an important determinant of quality of life among older persons. The association between better health and better subjective well-being is well known. However, the kinds of social activities associated with subjective well-being are largely unknown. This study aimed to assess such relationships, taking into account the type of social activities involved among community living older persons aged 65 and over. Method: We used self-administered questionnaire data (N = 2,652) from the Japan Gerontological Evaluation Project (JAGES) 2016. We conducted a poisson regression analyses stratified by age group to elucidate the association between social activities and better subjective well-being. Results: After adjusting for sex, family composition, household income, number of illnesses and depression, we found that activities to teach skills or passing on experiences to others were significantly related to higher subjective well-being both among the young-old (65-74) and the old-old (75 and over) population. Conclusion: Altruistic activities such as teaching skills or conveying knowledge to others appear to be related to higher subjective well-being. Promoting social activities has the potential to enhance subjective well-being among the elderly population.
Ascertaining progress in building age-friendly cities (AFCs) requires community diagnostic indicators. This study examines the relationship between social participation and happiness at the municipal level. The data from the Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study (JAGES) from 2013, 2016, and 2019, comprising 442,079 older people from 289 municipalities, are used. We also employ linear mixed-effects models to evaluate the association between social participation and happiness. In these models, we adjust for seven variables as potential confounders. This study reveals that the higher the social participation, except for neighborhood association, the higher the state of happiness (B = 0.14–0.30). Our study suggests that social participation is useful, as a community diagnostic indicator, for monitoring the progress of building AFCs, developing strategies, and creating evidence.
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