Effectiveness of community organizing interventions on social activities among older residents in Japan: A JAGES quasi-experimental study

Social activities in the community help older adults maintain functional ability. Community organizing, based on the assessment of health risks, community assets, and fostering intersectoral organizational partnerships, could increase participation opportunities. Supporting municipality staff members in building their capacity to take those actions might benefit them. Nevertheless, the effectiveness of such support remains unclear. This real-world-setting study evaluated the effectiveness of providing support for municipality health sectors in relation to older residents’ social activities. Based on the Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study (JAGES), a nationwide study of community-dwelling older adults, from 2013 to 2016 researchers collaborated with health sector staff members in 13 participating municipalities (intervention group) in utilizing the JAGES-based community assessment data and building organizational partnerships. The remaining 12 municipalities (control) obtained the data only. We analyzed the longitudinal data of 47,106 older residents, performing a difference-in-differences (DID) analysis, weighted by the inverse of propensity to be selected for the intervention group, allowing for a multilevel (municipality/individual) data structure. In the intervention group, the estimated group participation prevalence in men increased by 10.4 percentage points from 47.5% to 57.9%, while in the control group, participation increased by 7.9 percentage points from 47.2% to 55.0% (DID estimated = 0.025, P = 0.011). No statistically significant difference between the two groups was observed among women (P = 0.131). Support for community organizing may improve group participation among older male residents. The community-attributable impact could be large, given that the intervention has the potential to work for all older residents in the municipality.