Résumé
In the town which commenced health promotion facilities using hot spring in May, 2000, how the utilization frequency influences afterwards health status and active life expectancy, was investigated by the follow-up study.<br>The research subjects were all inhabitants aged 40 or more years living in J town with about 10, 000 inhabitants in Toyama Prefecture, Japan. The cooperation request of the survey was carried out to women's association, when the survey was performed in December, 2000.<br>With regard to the entry survey, the answers of 5, 812 (95.0%)of the 6, 117 registered inhabitants were collected. They were served to the follow-up survey on (1) death, (2) bone fracture, (3) cerebral apoplexy, (4) senile dementia, (5) welfare facilities entrance, (6) long term admission beyond 6 months, (7) bed bound, (8) diabetes mellitus from April, 2001 to March, 2004. The sex-age matched control was randomly selected from the inhabitants participated in the entry survey for case-control study.<br>As the result, the occurrence rates of (1) death and (2) bone fracture were significantly lower in the group with twice or more utilization of the hot spring per year compared with the group utilizing once or less per year, and (3) cerebral apoplexy showed the slightly significant relationship, even after adjusting with exercise habit and WHO-QOL of confounding factors. The other events were not significantly associated with frequency of hot spring utilization.<br>It has been indicated that health promotion facilities using hot spring could contribute to active life expectancy via health and welfare promotion.
Résumé
The Ministry of Health and Welfare inaugurated an official recognition system for spa-based health promotion facilities in 1988 as part of its health promotion program. As a result, those facilities gradually increased across the country until the number of the recognized facilities reached 17 by February 1995.<br>The Japan Health & Research Institute has performed factfinding surveys on the use of these recognized spa-based health promotion facilities every year from the beginning of the recognition system. This paper reports the survey results obtained during these 5 years.<br>During the past 5 years, 275 males and 138 females used these spa-based health promotion facilities (with tax deductions applied to madical expenses). The number of male patients was about twice as large as that of female patients. Most males used the facilities because of diseases in the field of internal medicine, and most females, because of diseases in the field of orthopedic surgery.<br>We are planning to prepare a manual for evaluating the effects of spa therapy and assess the efficacy of spa therapy by including a new survey item of “clinical effects of spa therapy” in a questionnaire for a nationwide survey.