A Questionnaire Survey for Living Environment of Special Old Age Nursing Homes and Elderly Health Care Facilities in Japan

Abstract

We intended to clarify the present states of special old age nursing homes and elderly health care facilities in Japan especially in a cold climate region. A questionnaire survey about maintenance and control of living environment for all special old age nursing homes and elderly health care facilities in Sapporo and Fukuoka City, and Hokkaido, Saitama, Kanagawa, Osaka Prefecture and Tokyo Metropolis was performed. The main questionnaire asks about heating, air-cooling, ventilation system, sanitary system and indoor air quality including bio-aerosol and odors. We send the questionnaire sheets, which were A-4 size and four pages, to total 1,479 homes and facilities. We received total 646 answers, about 44% of total number. The 95 questionnaire items were converted 249 categories for statistical analyses. The present database for special old age nursing homes and elderly health care facilities consists of about 160,000 data. The data obtained from Sapporo City and Hokkaido Prefecture were compared with those of other regions. We show the characteristics of special old age nursing homes and elderly health care facilities in a cold climate region in this paper. The main differences were set values of air temperature in both winter and mid-summer, and air-cooling system.