Abstract

Integrated community care aims to enable individuals facing difficulties in daily life to continue living healthily in their own communities through coordinated medical, nursing, and social care. While prior studies have largely focused on service-provider-driven integration approaches, emphasizing community participation remain limited. This study examines ‘Dadolbom (meaning Care for All)’, a community-based participatory initiative addressing the care needs of elderly residents living alone in Yongho 3-dong, Nam-gu, Busan. Originating from local recognition of the need for collective action, the project involved forming a neighborhood network, conducting comprehensive surveys with 802 elderly individuals living alone, identifying their problems, and implementing collaborative solutions for tackling the problems. Participants included residents, healthcare workers, social workers, and local government representatives. The elderly were categorized into three disadvantaged groupscardiovascular disease, mental health, and social support-to intervention. Especially, pre- and post- intervention changes among the individuals identified as the mental health vulnerable group revealed statistically significant positive improvements in all measured domains, including subjective health status, depression, suicidal ideation, and social support. ‘Dadolbom’ emphasized community-driven planning, regular discussions, and rapid responses to urgent cases. This experience underscores the potential of participatory frameworks in delivering effective integrated care and offers practical insights for developing community-centered initiatives.