We have conducted health promotion workshops in Kobe City, beginning in June 2016, to promote the view of pharmacies as community health centers that provide not only medicine but also offer support for maintaining and enhancing a person's health. To this end, we collaborated with Kobe Women's University (KWU). Our health promotion workshops included: 1. Activities of daily living (ADL) exercises led by a KWU professional; 2. Lectures on various diseases by dietitians and pharmacists; 3. Nutritional guidance from a dietitian; 4. Health counseling by a pharmacist; and 5. Measurements of bone density, vascular age, and so on. A significant portion of the participants were relatively healthy and had strong legs. In October 2017, we investigated changes in the participants' awareness about health through a questionnaire study. We analyzed the results of 26 individuals who participated in the workshops more than once-18 of them (69%) expressed increased interest in exercise, 15 (58%) had begun walking regularly, and 11 (42%) changed their diet in terms of dietary fiber and salt. This suggests that our health promotion workshops brought about positive changes in people with regard to awareness of health and a healthy lifestyle. To further explore how pharmacies might contribute to healthy life expectancy, we will continue to investigate the relationship between changes in exercise and diet and people's awareness of health. As a group exercise, from now on we have decided to expand the role of pharmacies as community health promotion centers with the slogan "Extend healthy life expectancy by having fun".
Keywords: collaborate; extend healthy life expectancy; having fun; university.