R&D PROJECTS

Project Overview

The root cause of isolation and loneliness which many residents feel in the modern society is the dysfunctional social environment and the modern society that cannot afford to nurture it

Compared to primary and secondary prevention, which often depend on individuals’ effort, zero-level prevention methods, which intervene in individuals’ social environments, are positioned as new issues to be worked on. In mutual assistance among communities, those involved with community associations and the like are aging rapidly; public assistance tends to have limitations in terms of available staffs and budget. As a result, there is often a lack of capacity to intervene in residents’ social environment that could contribute to the prevention of social isolation and loneliness. Furthermore, since people have different preferences for how to interact with the society and how to visit neighboring places and the social environment cannot embrace these preferences broadly and function accordingly, it often fails to capture future opportunities.

Developing the zero-level prevention model designed to co-create “venues” that make residents people feel connected and form local communities

This project aims to create a society that welcomes high-risk individuals who have a tendency toward isolation and loneliness and provides them with neighboring public spaces where they can stop by and interact with other residents anytime.
For this purpose, we will co-create placemaking methods through public-private-academic collaboration that help make people feel connections, which would start at small neighboring places and then ideally come to form local communities later, as well as provide spatial prescription utilizing diverse neighboring social environments. Placemaking in this project refers to a method of intervention in neighboring social environments to build community gatherings in public spaces accessible to local residents. In order to visualize social isolation and loneliness risks and develop their evaluation methods, we will develop a zero-level isolation and loneliness prevention model and a primary prevention model, visualizing prevention disparities, based on diverse neighboring social environments, and providing a rational basis to utilize public spaces and locational attractiveness. Based on the above, we will research and develop a mechanism to bolster the intermediate support organization that area-coordinates the collaboration between public assistance and mutual assistance, in order to establish the strategic placemaking methods, making the most of diverse neighboring social environments and considering the spatial, social, and informational preferences of high-risk individuals.

Q&A

Please tell us more about the social vision this project aims to achieve for the primary prevention of social isolation and loneliness.

We aim to form a society that welcomes high-risk individuals who have a tendency toward isolation and loneliness and provides them with neighboring public spaces to stop by casually and interact with other residents anytime. We believe it can be achieved by any of those who are involved with community development to consider residents’ spatial, social, and information preferences to the fullest extent possible, which will lead to create a mechanism to organically area-coordinate the collaboration between public and mutual assistance to prevent isolation and loneliness.

What are the biggest challenges (bottlenecks) in achieving the social vision above?

We believe the biggest bottleneck is the need to understand the mechanism to create local places that welcome high-risk individuals in collaboration with high-risk group stakeholders. For this objective, we will try modeling the mechanism of strategic placemaking to figure out what high-risk groups can be prevented from falling into isolation and loneliness status through community development and what kind of social-environmental diversity can be leveraged through area management with prevention disparities visualized.

Participating/Cooperating Institutions

• University of Hyogo, Hiroshima University, Yamaguchi University, The University of the Ryukyus, Himeji Chamber of Commerce and Industry Urban Town Development Committee, Himeji City (Parks and Greenery Section), Slow Society Association, Hito Network Himeji, and others.