AUTHOR=Nagai Masato , Hikichi Hiroyuki , Shiba Koichiro , Kondo Katsunori , Kawachi Ichiro , Aida Jun 

TITLE=Long-Term Trend in the Association Between Disaster Damage and Happiness Before and After the Great East Japan Earthquake

JOURNAL=International Journal of Public Health

VOLUME=67

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.ssph-journal.org/journals/international-journal-of-public-health/articles/10.3389/ijph.2022.1604901

DOI=10.3389/ijph.2022.1604901

ISSN=1661-8564

ABSTRACT=<p><bold>Objectives:</bold> Disasters change survivors’ living circumstances, which can affect their happiness. We examined the trends in the association between disaster damage and happiness before and after a disaster.</p><p><bold>Methods:</bold> We analyzed 4,044 participants aged ≥65 years who had experienced the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011. The baseline survey was conducted 7 months before the disaster. Follow-up surveys have been conducted every 3 years. Using a mixed model for repeated measures, we compared the prevalence ratios (PRs) for unhappiness according to the survivors’ level of housing damage, which is a proxy for disaster damage.</p><p><bold>Results:</bold> The unhappiness in participants who suffered severe damage appeared to be higher than in those with no damage in 2010 (multivariate-adjusted PR: 1.18, 95% confidence interval: 0.93–1.48). A higher PR was observed after the earthquake in 2013 (1.34, 0.79–2.28), while there was no difference in 2016 (1.02, 0.53–1.97) and 2019 (1.03, 0.50–2.12).</p><p><bold>Conclusion:</bold> The prevalence of unhappiness in survivors with severe housing damage was higher before the disaster. However, the unhappiness gap between people with and without housing damage converged during the follow-up.</p>