Damage, Living Environment, and Reconstruction Under the Great East Japan Earthquake-The 5th Survey of Nuclear Disaster Evacuees from Futaba, Fukushima, Summary of Results 2019

保険研究部准主任研究員岩﨑敬子

1――Basic Information

Surveys on the damage, living environment and reconstruction under the Great East Japan Earthquake have been conducted via a research project called the "International comparison of reconstruction of living infrastructure from disasters" (Yasuyuki Sawada, Professor, Graduate School of Economics, The University of Tokyo; Keiko Iwasaki, Researcher, NLI Research Institute) of the University of Tokyo since 2013. The surveys target all household heads of Futaba in Fukushima prefecture, where all residents were forced to evacuate due to the nuclear power plant accident caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake that occurred in 2011. Surveys were conducted in July 2013, December 2014, July 2016, December 2017 and July 2019. This paper reports the summary of results of the fifth survey conducted in July 2019.¹

The survey includes questions about basic attributes such as age and gender, as well as questions related to connections with others (social capital) and health conditions (see the appendix at the end of this report for all the questions included in the survey). The questionnaires were distributed to all households of Futaba (about 2,950 households) that receive the regular town mail from Futaba. We also distributed a simplified version of the questionnaires excluding already available information gathered in previous rounds of the surveys to 534 residents who had filled out their names and addresses in previous surveys. We received responses from 707 Futaba residents who had evacuated nationwide (365 responses from questionnaires included in the town mail, 342 responses from the simplified version of the questionnaires; the response rate was about 24%).

The survey targeted heads of households and Figures 1 and 2 show the distribution of age and gender of the respondents. As we can see from these figures, compared to the age and gender distribution reported in the national census, the age distribution of the respondents is left-skewed, with the majority of respondents in their late 60s. The gender distribution shows that the majority of respondents are male. In addition, since the survey was conducted after the tremendous disaster, it is possible that the distributions of the respondents' characteristics are significantly different from those of general questionnaire surveys. Therefore, it should be noted that the results of this survey do not necessarily indicate the general trend of Futaba residents.

Figure 1: Age Distribution of Respondents/Figure 2: Gender Distribution of Respondents

¹ This research was supported by the following research grants.
　Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (15 J09313, 26220502, LZ003), Research Grants of the Japan Center for Economic Research.
This study is approved by the Ethics Committee of the University of Tokyo (19 -73).

2――Health Condition

Regarding the health condition of the respondents, as shown in Figure 3, many rated their own health condition before the earthquake as "good" or "very good," while many rated their health status after the disaster as "bad," "terrible" or "can't say either way." Compared to the 2016 survey results, the portion of respondents who rated their current health status as "good" increased in the 2019 survey, while the portion of respondents who rated their current health status as "bad" decreased slightly, indicating that the overall health status of Futaba residents has been gradually recovering. On the other hand, as shown in Figure 4, when asked about changes in health condition compared to pre-disaster status, many respondents rated their own health condition as worse than that of their pre-disaster status and the distribution has hardly changed since 2013.

Figure 3: Current Health Status/Figure 4: Change in Subjective Health Status

As for mental health, the distribution of K6 score, a clinically validated index for diagnosing the overall stress state, of Futaba residents gradually improved from 2013 to 2019 (see Figure 5). However, the scores are still higher in Futaba compared to those for Japan or in the surveys conducted immediately after the disaster in the other disaster affected areas, indicating that the mental health recovery of Futaba may take a very long time. (K6 is an internationally used measurement for general mental health status that consists of six questions. The higher the total score, the more likely the respondent is stressed.)

Figure 5: Distribution of K6 Scores for Japan, Futaba,
and Other Disaster Affected Areas

In addition, the previous rounds of surveys showed that the K6 score among Futaba residents living in temporary shelters had been increasing year by year, but only a few (6 people) lived in temporary shelters among respondents of the 2019 survey since many who used to live in temporary shelters had moved to public reconstruction housing. Therefore, instead of checking the distribution of the K6 score among temporary shelter residents, we compared the distribution of the K6 score by dwelling type this time. As shown in Figure 6, the distribution of the K6 score among residents of public reconstruction housing tends to be higher than that of residents living in other kinds of dwellings such as their own house or rental housing. This suggests the importance of continuous mental health support even after moving to public reconstruction housing from temporary shelters.

Figure 6: Distribution of K6 by Dwelling Type

However, the results of this survey do not necessarily apply to all residents of Futaba, and a high K6 score does not necessarily mean that one has a mental disorder. Please note that the purpose of our survey is to provide policy implications to the Government or other administrative agencies.

3――Change in Social Capital

Social capital refers to trusting relationships and networks, and is sometimes referred to as "kizuna" in Japanese. Social capital is getting attention as a key notion to achieve successful disaster recovery and has been one of the major focuses of our study. In previous studies, we showed social capital would play an important role in maintaining mental health after the disaster, while it might have been weakened by the disaster among Futaba residents.

There are several indicators that are commonly used to measure social capital, but we focused on three items. First, we checked the level of "generalized trust" using the GSS trust question, which is one of the most commonly used social capital measures. Generalized trust among Futaba residents had been decreasing from 2013 to 2016 (portion of those that think people can be trusted had been decreasing). However, since 2017, the portion of those that think people can be trusted has been gradually increasing (see Figure 7). The overall distribution has almost recovered to the same level as that of Japan in 2019, eight years after the disaster. On the other hand, since Futaba had a very high generalized trust level before the disaster, recovery to its original high level will take much longer.

The second indicator of social capital, "frequency of mutual assistance with neighbors," also shows a gradual recovery trend. In addition, the third indicator of social capital, "trust of neighbors" also shows a gradual recovery trend since 2016, but both trends have been very moderate. It will take a very long time for social capital to recover, and we believe it is important to continue to monitor these changes over the long term.

Figure 8: Frequency of Mutual Assistance with Neighbors/Figure 9: Trust of Neighbors

日付	タイトル	執筆者	媒体
2023/03/28	子どもがマスクを外すことを嫌がる場面と頻度～感染拡大初期と2022年10月の比較	岩﨑敬子	基礎研レポート
2023/03/28	子どもがマスクを着用することを嫌がる場面と頻度～感染拡大初期と2022年10月の比較	岩﨑敬子	基礎研レポート
2023/03/01	「東日本大震災による被害・生活環境・復興に関するアンケート」2022年調査結果概要－帰還開始後初の双葉町民を対象とする調査（第７回調査）*	岩﨑敬子	基礎研レポート
2023/03/01	Summary Results of the 7th Survey of Nuclear Disaster Evacuees from Futaba, Fukushima-The First Survey since the Start of Return*-	岩﨑敬子	基礎研レポート

日付

タイトル

執筆者

媒体

2023/03/28

子どもがマスクを外すことを嫌がる場面と頻度～感染拡大初期と2022年10月の比較

岩﨑敬子

基礎研レポート

2023/03/28

子どもがマスクを着用することを嫌がる場面と頻度～感染拡大初期と2022年10月の比較

岩﨑敬子

基礎研レポート