According to a 2008 report by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, there are about 310,000 people with visual impairments in Japan. Majority of people with visual impairments have low vision (LV), as opposed to blind without sights and/or lights, and most of them are older adults. Since many LV individuals are older adults, most previous studies have primarily focused on elderly populations. Consequently, research on younger adults with LV remains insufficient, and their current circumstances are not clear. In this study, we focused on the "roles" and "future directions" of the younger adults with LV. We conducted interviews with seven people with LV who were aged 49 or younger and specifically who considered themselves doing relatively well. The results of the analysis, regarding the perspective of "roles," generated three categories: "expanding the choices of work" "establishing a peer support group" and "giving feedback on visual support tools." Regarding their "future directions," two categories were generated: one related to society, and another related to themselves. For young adults with LV, who are often situated in environments that eliminate their opportunities for social and community participation, engaging in roles and having future directions were related to well-being, as the roles and the future directions involved hopes for becoming better themselves and achieving social change. The findings suggest that Japanese society continues to treat visual impairment as a condition strongly associated with social exclusion. This underscores the need to reframe support systems away from individual adaptation to the impairment alone and to move towards the mechanisms that enhance both psychological empowerment and structural transformation.
（This work was supported by JST Grant Number JPMJPF2201.）