Longitudinal impacts of pre-existing inequalities and social environmental changes on life recovery: Results of the 1995 Kobe Earthquake and the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake recovery studies

Abstract

Nearly 50 years of disaster research findings have been accumulated on how pre-existing vulnerability/inequality as well as post-event environmental changes affect the long-term recovery process. While most previous studies have been based on cross-sectional survey results, more recently, studies based on longitudinal surveys have been reported. By following the trajectories of individual recoveries, longitudinal studies allow for a more rigorous analysis of factors related to better recovery. They can also provide findings based on causal inference analysis with a higher level of evidence for factors affecting recovery. This article reviews the results from longitudinal studies conducted over a 10-year period after the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake and the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, respectively. The findings are integrated into two broad categories: (1) correlational studies, which investigated factors associated with specific patterns of recovery trajectories, such as stagnation, and (2) causal inference studies, in which evidence is provided on the effect of specific factors on better recovery trajectories. Based on these reviews, a refined model of long-term disaster recovery processes is proposed. The key point of the model illustrates that there are pre-existing vulnerabilities/inequalities and post-disaster social environmental changes that make a longitudinal impact upon both subjective and objective measures of individual and collective recovery. The current review showed such pre-existing vulnerability/inequality variables as smaller size households with older aged, female heads of the household, mental and/or physical health issues, disabilities, unemployment due to disaster, low income, and a lack of social support network. The review also extends domain-knowledge-based inferences to those individuals whose traits/characteristics were not overtly covered. Regarding post-disaster social environmental changes, the improvements in housing, physical and mental health, livelihood as well as community and personal social ties showed evidence to cause upward recovery trajectories. A case study of Chinese community recovery was presented as an example of how these predictor variables were acted upon. Finally, this article reviews how the introduction of disaster case management has accelerated the pace of housing reconstruction and closed the housing reconstruction gap between the haves and have-nots.