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The Great East Japan Earthquake, Tsunamis, and Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Disaster: Lessons for Evidence Integration from a WADEM 2017 Presentation and Panel Discussion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2018

Claire Leppold ,
Sae Ochi ,
Shuhei Nomura  and
Virginia Murray
Claire Leppold*
Affiliation:
Global Public Health Unit, School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom Department of Research, Minamisoma Municipal General Hospital, Minamisoma, Japan
Sae Ochi
Affiliation:
Department of Laboratory Medicine, Jikei University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan Department of Internal Medicine, Soma Central Hospital, Soma, Japan
Shuhei Nomura
Affiliation:
Department of Global Health Policy, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom
Virginia Murray
Affiliation:
Public Health England, London, United Kingdom Integrated Research on Disaster Risk Scientific Committee Member, Beijing, China
*
Correspondence: Claire Leppold, MSc Global Public Health Unit School of Social and Political Science University of Edinburgh Edinburgh, United Kingdom E-mail: Claire.Leppold@ed.ac.uk
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Abstract

In April 2017, some of the health impacts of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, tsunamis, and resultant Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster (Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan) were presented at the 19th Congress of the World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine (WADEM; Madison, Wisconsin USA) in Toronto, Canada. A panel discussion was then opened by asking audience members about their experiences in their own countries, and how they would suggest taking steps to reach the goals of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030. This paper summarizes the presentation and panel discussion, with a particular focus on the common problems identified in understanding and reducing health risks from disasters in multiple countries, such as the ethical and practical difficulties in decision making on evacuating vulnerable populations that arose similarly during the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011 and Hurricane Ike’s approach to Galveston (Texas USA) in 2008. This paper also highlights the need for greater integration of research, for example through increased review and collation of evidence from different disaster settings to identify common problems and possible solutions, which was identified in this panel session as a precursor to fulfilling the goals of the Sendai Framework.

Leppold C, Ochi S, Nomura S, Murray V. The Great East Japan Earthquake, tsunamis, and Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster: lessons for evidence integration from a WADEM 2017 presentation and panel discussion. Prehosp Disaster Med. 2018;33(4):424–427

Keywords

FukushimaGreat East Japan Earthquakenuclear disastertsunami
Type
Special Report
Information
Prehospital and Disaster Medicine , Volume 33 , Issue 4 , August 2018 , pp. 424 - 427
Copyright
© World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine 2018 

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Footnotes

Conflicts of interest/funding: This conference session and follow-up report was partially supported by a Toyota Foundation (Tokyo, Japan) Grant (D15-R-0009). The funders had no role in the conference session and report design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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