A Public Health Perspective on Reconstructing Post-Disaster Tohoku: One year later.

One year later: update on transition to the society for disaster medicine and public health and Cambridge University Press.

Hyogo declaration and the cultural map of the world.

After the Great Hanshin-Awaji earthquake of 1995 and the 2004 tsunami disaster in the Indian Ocean, the United Nation’s International Strategy for Disaster Reduction sponsored the World Conference on Disaster Reduction, which was hosted by Japan in 2005. Its heralded product, the Hyogo Declaration, challenged governmental and non-governmental experts worldwide to find ways to reduce the increas...

Chemical contamination in Tohoku, with Lizzie Grossman and Winnie Bird.

The Tohoku earthquake and tsunami of 11 March 2011 devastated entire swaths of the Japanese coastline and killed thousands of people. Much of the attention following the disaster has focused on radiation exposures from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Now public health officials are beginning to assess another potential source of disaster-related exposures: hazardous chemicals...

Creating Community Resilience Through Elder-Led Physical and Social Infrastructure.

OBJECTIVE Natural disasters and rapidly aging populations are chronic problems for societies worldwide. We investigated the effects of an intervention in Japan known as Ibasho, which embeds elderly residents in vulnerable areas within larger social networks and encourages them to participate in leadership activities. This project sought to deepen the connections of these elderly residents to so...

A 25 year retrospective review of the psychological consequences of the Chernobyl accident.

The Chernobyl Forum Report from the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster concluded that mental health effects were the most significant public health consequence of the accident. This paper provides an updated review of research on the psychological impact of the accident during the 25 year period since the catastrophe began. First responders and clean-up workers had t...