Long-term impact of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami on functional disability among older people: A 3-year longitudinal comparison of disability prevalence among Japanese municipalities

Abstract

It has been unclear whether the prevalence of disability is higher in an area affected by natural disaster than in other areas even if more than one year has passed since the disaster. The aim of this ecological study was to examine whether the rate of increase in disability prevalence among the older population was higher in disaster-stricken areas during the 3 years after the Great East Japan Earthquake (GEJE) and tsunami. This analysis used public Long-term Care Insurance (LTCI) data covering 1570 municipalities. "Disaster areas" were considered to be the three prefectures most affected by the earthquake and tsunami: Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima. The outcome measure was the number of aged people (≥65 years) with LTCI disability certification. Rates of change in disability prevalence from January 2011 to January 2014 were used as the primary outcome variable, and compared by analysis of covariance between "coastal disaster areas", "inland disaster areas" and "non-disaster areas". The mean rate of increase in disability prevalence in coastal (14.7%) and inland (10.0%) disaster areas was higher than in non-disaster areas (6.2%) (P < 0.001). During the 3 years after the earthquake, the increase of disability prevalence from before the GEJE continued to be higher in the disaster-stricken areas.

Predictors of decline in IADL functioning among older survivors following the Great East Japan earthquake: A prospective study

“…Our present study is consistent previous reports about the adverse mental health impacts of property damage and job loss; but no previous reports were found on functional status. The present study is consistent with the ecological data (Tomata et al,2015) reporting increased disability prevalence in the affected areas, and provides a possible mechanism for explaining the increase. The present finding also agrees with the report that cognitive ability among survivors in the affected areas declined more than people in non-affected areas.…”

“…(Tomata et al, 2014; Tomata et al, 2015) The maintenance of functional independence with aging is influenced by a set of well characterized factors, including: a) physical activity vs. inactivity, b) social engagement vs. isolation, c) active vs. passive coping, and d) health services utilization vs. unmet medical needs. (Berkman, 2003) We hypothesized that older survivors are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of the earthquake/tsunami because many of them were relocated to temporary housing following the destruction of their property.…”

Higher Incidence of Sleep Disturbance among Survivors with Musculoskeletal Pain after the Great East Japan Earthquake: A Prospective Study

“…The relationship between pain and sleep disturbance is considered to be quite complex (Smith and Haythornthwaite 2004). The survivors of the GEJE suffer from various physical, mental, and socioeconomic problems that are probably related to pain and sleep disturbance (Matsumoto et al 2014;Tomata et al 2015;Sone et al 2016;Watanabe et al 2016). Musculoskeletal pain was associated with new-onset sleep disturbance in such a complicated situation.…”

Sustained Increase in the Incidence of Acute Decompensated Heart Failure After the 2011 Japan Earthquake and Tsunami

“…The prevalence of elderly people with a functional disability in the tsunami area is reported to show a steep increase from 9% at 1 year after to 15% at 3 years after the event. 27 This relative increase in fragile or more vulnerable people within the coastal population may have some bearing on the increased incidence of HF in that area.…”