Abstract
Various studies have determined that the Great East Japan Earthquake (GEJE) caused mental distress among residents in affected areas. However, previous studies had not considered the prevalence of mental distress before the GEJE, and ignored the impact of an aged society on mental distress. Therefore, we aimed to describe the prevalence of mental distress before the GEJE in Miyagi Prefecture, Japan and elucidate the effect of an aged society on mental distress. We conducted an ecological study, using municipality in Miyagi Prefecture as the study unit. We used the cross-sectional mail survey data conducted in February 2011. We performed a correlation analysis in each of the 39 municipalities in Miyagi Prefecture. The prevalence of serious mental distress was 9.1%. The proportion of the population aged 65 years or older was related to the prevalence of serious mental distress in municipalities with a low proportion of all workers engaged in primary industry and with a high estimated number of inpatients with mental illness. We found that residents in Miyagi Prefecture suffered from poor mental health before the GEJE. Aged society was related to serious mental distress in the areas with advanced industrial structure and more patients with mental illness. We should approach mental health problems in the context of social structure, particularly in an aged society, based on facts about mental distress before the GEJE.
Highlights
The Great East Japan Earthquake (GEJE) occurred on March 11, 2011 on the coast of northeast Japan, resulting in the death or disappearance of approximately 20,000 people [1]
Of the 1,487 surveyed participants included from Miyagi Prefecture, 9.1% (n = 135) had serious mental distress (Fig 3)
We determined that the prevalence of serious mental distress before the GEJE in Miyagi Prefecture was 9.1%
Summary
The Great East Japan Earthquake (GEJE) occurred on March 11, 2011 on the coast of northeast Japan, resulting in the death or disappearance of approximately 20,000 people [1]. The GEJE mainly affected the Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima Prefectures, in the Tohoku region of Japan (Fig 1). Mental distress before the Great East Japan Earthquake and an aged society. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript
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