Review of Mental Health Consequences of the Great East Japan Earthquake through Long-Term Epidemiological Studies: The Shichigahama Health Promotion Project

Editorial: Review Series in Disaster Medicine

Review of Mental Health Consequences of the Great East Japan Earthquake through Long-Term Epidemiological Studies: The Shichigahama Health Promotion Project

Yasuto Kunii,¹ Hitomi Usukura,¹ Yusuke Utsumi,² Moe Seto,² Yumiko Hamaie,² Yumi Sugawara,³ Naoki Nakaya,⁴ Shinichi Kuriyama,^4,5 Atsushi Hozawa,⁴ Ichiro Tsuji^3,4 and Hiroaki Tomita^1,2,4,6

¹Department of Disaster Psychiatry, International Research Institute of Disaster Science, Tohoku University, Sendai, Miyagi, Japan
²Department of Psychiatry, Tohoku University Hospital, Sendai, Miyagi, Japan
³Department of Public Health, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai, Miyagi, Japan
⁴Department of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Tohoku University Tohoku Medical Megabank Organization, Sendai, Miyagi, Japan
⁵Department of Disaster Public Health, International Research Institute of Disaster Science, Tohoku University, Sendai, Miyagi, Japan
⁶Department of Psychiatry, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai, Miyagi, Japan

After the Great East Japan Earthquake, Tohoku University began to provide mental health services during the acute phase of the disaster in cooperation with Shichigahama Town, one of the municipalities located in the coastal area of the Miyagi Prefecture that was severely damaged by the earthquake and tsunami; it continued to be providing long-term mental health activities, incorporating annual surveys for affected residents in the town for 10 years. Ten years of combination of surveys and outreach activities first depicted detailed longitudinal alterations in the mental health conditions of communities affected by a catastrophe. While posttraumatic stress reaction had recovered year by year after the year following the Great East Japan Earthquake, recovery from psychological distress retreated between 2014 and 2017, probably due to the relocation from temporal to eternal housing conditions. The annual cycles of assessment and provision of mental health support and promotion activities continued for 10 years can be an initial model for evidence-based, long-term post-disaster mental health and psychosocial support for the affected communities. Data regarding subsequent disasters should be collected in comparable ways, in order to improve the accuracy and usefulness of the accumulated data for planning and providing evidence-based post-disaster mental health and psychosocial support.

Keywords —— disaster psychiatry; Great East Japan Earthquake; long-term support; mental health; Shichigahama Health Promotion Project

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Tohoku J. Exp. Med 2022, 257, 85-95.

Correspondence: Yasuto Kunii, M.D., Ph.D., Department of Disaster Psychiatry, International Research Institute of Disaster Science, Tohoku University, 4-1 Seiryo-machi, Aoba-ku, Sendai, Miyagi 980-8575, Japan.

e-mail: yasuto.kunii@gmail.com