Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Objective: Natural disasters and rapidly aging populations are chronic problems for societies worldwide. We investigated the effects of an intervention in Japan known as Ibasho, which embeds elderly residents in vulnerable areas within larger social networks and encourages them to participate in leadership activities. This project sought to deepen the connections of these elderly residents to society and to build elderly leadership and community capacity for future crises. Methods: We carried out surveys of participants and nonparticipant residents across the city of Ofunato in Tohoku, Japan, 1 year after the intervention began. Our surveys included questions assessing participation levels in …