The Impact of the Great East Japan Earthquake on Research Activity in a Disaster-Stricken Area.

Abstract

This article evaluates research activities after wide-scale disaster damage. Wide-scale disasters rarely occur, and thus there are insufficient research and data on recovery and reconstruction from such disasters. The large earthquake and tsunami in Japan’s Tohoku region in 2011 caused serious damage in Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima Prefectures. Significantly, many research facilities were destroyed at Tohoku University, located in Miyagi Prefecture, and caused serious damage to research activities. There were 3 medical facilities located in the disaster-affected area: Fukushima Medical University, Iwate Medical University, and Tohoku University. Tohoku University is a comprehensive university and is the largest in the Tohoku District. To evaluate the damage to medical research activity caused by the earthquake and tsunami, we investigated the research activities at the aforementioned 3 universities. Using PubMed Advanced Search Builder, published articles between 2008 and 2011 were extracted. Articles were categorized into basic medicine, clinical medicine, and public health by the researchers. The number of articles published from those 3 universities increased from 1411 to 1711, roughly 21%. In the same period, article publication across all of Japan increased by roughly 13%. There were 1327 articles published from Tohoku University in 2013, a 21% increase from 2008; Iwate Medical University had 210 more articles published, a 70% increase; and Fukushima Medical University, had 176 more articles published, a 30% increase (Figure 1). Distribution across the 3 categories was generally the same during this period. Among the 1327 articles, 45 were disaster-related articles; Tohoku University, Iwate Medical University, and Fukushima Medical University published 25, 5, and 15 articles, respectively. Of these, 3 articles were related to the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant caused by the tsunami. The data demonstrate that medical research activities continued even after the wide-scale disaster, indicating that damage was limited at these 3 universities in the disaster-affected area. This can be explained by the following reasons. First, the tsunami did not directly damage the universities. Most of the casualties were caused by the tsunami, and thus human casualties at the universities were greatly limited. Moreover, the universities are a long distance from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, and thus the schools’ research activities, which require intensive human resources, were not severely damaged. Second, large postquake reconstruction projects may have ameliorated any damage to research activities; an example is the genomic cohort project, which cost approximately US$13 billion, took place from 2011 to 2012, and was begun at Tohoku University and Iwate Medical University. Approximately 100 researchers and other staff were newly employed for this project. Those researchers may have supported a wide range of research activities and offset any damages, although only 2 articles were published from the project between 2011 and 2012.