[Evaluation of factors associated with well-being of elderly in an aged society by analytic hierarchy process...

In the coming aged society in Japan, where about one quarter of the citizens will be aged 65 or more, the social policy concerning the well-being of the elderly will become very important for the local government. In this analysis, the authors evaluated the importance of future social programs on this subject using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique in a community of Fukuoka prefecture. Fifty-three participants in this study regarded six keywords as important for the well being of the elderly in the coming aged society in the following order: health, family hobby life-long education, friends community, economic conditions, and social participation. Considering the contribution to each of the six keywords, composite priorities among the four programs were determined by the AHP technique to be in the following order: assistance for the social autonomy of the elderly, health promotion programs, development of welfare services, and development of medical services. These results indicate that for Japan to achieve a comfortable aged society, a democratic government made possible by autonomous individual citizen is desirable, with wide participation of individual in services provided by autonomous local governments that incorporate the structured elements shown to be important in this study.