# Safety Promotion & Safe Community

## Kameoka City in Kyoto received a Safe Community certification for the first time in Japan

In Japan, people tend to consider an accident as “an unforeseen disaster”. However, based on the concept of the World Health Organization (WHO), “accidents can be predicted if appropriate measures are devised”, measures are recommended to avoid all types of external injuries (not only unexpected accidents, but also cases of suicide and abuse) that occur in daily life. These measures are called Safety Promotion measures and the town which practices the Safety Promotion concept is called a Safe Community.

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To ensure a safe and secure life for people, an approach wherein death by external causes such as unexpected accidents, suicide, murder is given more importance than before in addition to prevention of diseases and ensuring a medical treatment system. Especially, with regard to the youth, the percentage of death by external causes is increasing in the total percentage of death causes, and in 15 years to 34 years age group, it is more than 50% (cases of unexpected accidents and suicides).

Safety Promotion is an approach for prevention of injuries and deaths from accidents and violence by scientific intervention in cooperation with various departments and professions so that people can live peacefully.

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Safe community is a systematization of community activities carried out for building safe and secure communities with the help of citizens, which originally began in 1970 in a suburban city in Sweden.

Based on the concept that accidents and injuries do not occur by chance and they can be predicted if causes are analyzed by paying attention to their peculiarity, development of a town where all the citizens can live healthy and cheerful lives in coordination with the administration, locals residents, NPOs and relevant private organization etc. is encouraged.

Fatalities by cause of death

Ranking	Cause of death	Fatalities (Persons)	Remarks
1	Malignant neoplasm	329,314
2	Cardiac disease	173,024
3	Cerebrovascular disease	128,268
4	Pneumonia	107,242
5	Unexpected accidents	38,270	Issued handled by Safe Community
6	Suicide	29,921
7	Senility	27,764
8	Renal failure/insufficiency	21,158
9	Hepatic problem	16,267
10	Chronic obstructive lung disease	14,357

Note Source: Population Survey Report (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare) for the Year 2006

First 5 ranks of death causes, by age group (Percentage of unexpected accidents

and suicides are included in death causes by the age group)

Age group	1st rank	2nd rank	3rd rank	4th rank	5th rank
0-4	Unexpected accident	Cardiac disease	Malignant neoplasm	Pneumonia	Hepatic problem
46.4%	19.3%	13.8%	13.6%	2.7%
5-9	Unexpected accident	Malignant neoplasm	Pneumonia	Cardiac disease	Cerebrovascular disease
47.5%	32.0%	8.4%	7.6%	2.8%
10-14	Malignant neoplasm	Unexpected accident	Suicide	Cardiac disease	Cerebrovascular disease
33.6%	26.8%	19.2%	10.9%	6.6%
15-19	Unexpected accident	Suicide	Malignant neoplasm	Cardiac disease	Cerebrovascular disease
41.9%	34.6%	13.1%	6.3%	2.3%
20-24	Suicide	Unexpected accident	Malignant neoplasm	Cardiac disease	Pneumonia
52.4%	27.9%	9.6%	6.4%	1.8%
25-29	Suicide	Unexpected accident	Malignant neoplasm	Cardiac disease	Cerebrovascular disease
53.6%	20.0%	13.4%	8.4%	2.5%
30-34	Suicide	Malignant neoplasm	Unexpected accident	Cardiac disease	Cerebrovascular disease
43.7%	20.0%	15.7%	11.2%	5.0%
35-39	Suicide	Malignant neoplasm	Cardiac disease	Unexpected accident	Cerebrovascular disease
34.9%	26.9%	12.8%	12.6%	7.1%
40-44	Malignant neoplasm	Suicide	Cardiac disease	Unexpected accident	Cerebrovascular disease
33.3%	26.3%	14.2%	9.6%	9.4%
45-49	Malignant neoplasm	Suicide	Cardiac disease	Cerebrovascular disease	Unexpected accident
40.6%	18.5%	14.7%	11.1%	7.2%
50-54	Malignant neoplasm	Cardiac disease	Suicide	Cerebrovascular disease	Unexpected accident
48.6%	13.8%	12.5%	10.8%	5.9%
55-59	Malignant neoplasm	Cardiac disease	Cerebrovascular disease	Suicide	Unexpected accident
52.9%	14.2%	10.4%	9.1%	5.4%
60-64	Malignant neoplasm	Cardiac disease	Cerebrovascular disease	Suicide	Unexpected accident
55.8%	14.8%	10.3%	5.4%	4.7%
65-69	Malignant neoplasm	Cardiac disease	Cerebrovascular disease	Pneumonia	Unexpected accident
55.8%	15.3%	10.6%	5.1%	4.3%
70-74	Malignant neoplasm	Cardiac disease	Cerebrovascular disease	Pneumonia	Unexpected accident
52.7%	16.4%	12.2%	7.2%	4.1%
75-79	Malignant neoplasm	Cardiac disease	Cerebrovascular disease	Pneumonia	Unexpected accident
45.2%	18.2%	14.3%	10.5%	4.1%
80-84	Malignant neoplasm	Cardiac disease	Cerebrovascular disease	Pneumonia	Unexpected accident
35.1%	21.0%	16.5%	14.5%	3.9%
85-89	Malignant neoplasm	Cardiac disease	Pneumonia	Cerebrovascular disease	Senility
25.7%	23.6%	18.2%	18.2%	4.0%
90-94	Cardiac disease	Pneumonia	Cerebrovascular disease	Malignant neoplasm	Senility
25.0%	21.1%	18.1%	17.6%	9.0%
95-99	Cardiac disease	Pneumonia	Cerebrovascular disease	Senility	Malignant neoplasm
25.7%	22.4%	16.7%	15.9%	11.6%
100-	Senility	Cardiac disease	Pneumonia	Cerebrovascular disease	Malignant neoplasm
28.2%	23.6%	22.3%	13.7%	6.3%

Note Source: Population Survey Report (Health, Labour and Welfare Ministry) for the Year 2006