IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v18y2021i14p7478-d593640.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Mental Health Consequences of the Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima Nuclear Disasters: A Scoping Review

Author

Listed:
  • Misari Oe

    (Department of Neuropsychiatry, School of Medicine, Kurume University, Asahi-machi 67, Kurume 830-0011, Japan)

  • Yui Takebayashi

    (Department of Disaster Psychiatry, School of Medicine, Fukushima Medical University, Fukushima 960-1295, Japan)

  • Hideki Sato

    (Department of Disaster Psychiatry, School of Medicine, Fukushima Medical University, Fukushima 960-1295, Japan)

  • Masaharu Maeda

    (Department of Disaster Psychiatry, School of Medicine, Fukushima Medical University, Fukushima 960-1295, Japan)

Abstract

Many individuals who were affected by the Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami and the subsequent Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident continue to face a challenging recovery. We reviewed the long-term mental health consequences of three major nuclear power plant accidents: the Three Mile Island (TMI, 1979), Chernobyl (1986), and Fukushima (2011) nuclear disasters. We examined the relevant prospective cohort studies and before-and-after studies that covered more than two timepoints, searching four databases (PubMed, Ichushi, PsyArticles, and PTSDPub). We identified a total of 35 studies: TMI, n = 11; Chernobyl, n = 6; and Fukushima, n = 18. The smaller numbers of early-phase studies (within 6 months) of the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters may also indicate the chaotic situation at those timepoints, as large-scale interviews were conducted in the early phase after the TMI disaster. Although the patterns of effects on mental health outcomes were diverse, more than half of the participants in the studies we evaluated were categorized into low or under-threshold symptom groups in all three disasters. Across the three disasters, the radiation exposure level estimated by the proximity and stigma were the common risk factors for mental health outcomes. Our findings will contribute to a comprehensive understanding of the impact of the worst nuclear accidents in history on the affected individuals’ mental health, and our results illustrate the longitudinal consequences of such disasters.

Suggested Citation

  • Misari Oe & Yui Takebayashi & Hideki Sato & Masaharu Maeda, 2021. "Mental Health Consequences of the Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima Nuclear Disasters: A Scoping Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(14), pages 1-16, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:14:p:7478-:d:593640
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/14/7478/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/14/7478/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Itaru Miura & Masato Nagai & Masaharu Maeda & Mayumi Harigane & Senta Fujii & Misari Oe & Hirooki Yabe & Yuriko Suzuki & Hideto Takahashi & Tetsuya Ohira & Seiji Yasumura & Masafumi Abe, 2017. "Perception of Radiation Risk as a Predictor of Mid-Term Mental Health after a Nuclear Disaster: The Fukushima Health Management Survey," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-13, September.
    2. Goldsteen, Raymond & Schorr, John K. & Goldsteen, Karen S., 1989. "Longitudinal study of appraisal at Three Mile Island: Implications for life event research," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 389-398, January.
    3. Norris, Fran H. & Tracy, Melissa & Galea, Sandro, 2009. "Looking for resilience: Understanding the longitudinal trajectories of responses to stress," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(12), pages 2190-2198, June.
    4. Yuriko Suzuki & Yoshitake Takebayashi & Seiji Yasumura & Michio Murakami & Mayumi Harigane & Hirooki Yabe & Tetsuya Ohira & Akira Ohtsuru & Satomi Nakajima & Masaharu Maeda, 2018. "Changes in Risk Perception of the Health Effects of Radiation and Mental Health Status: The Fukushima Health Management Survey," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-11, June.
    5. Misari Oe & Masaharu Maeda & Tetsuya Ohira & Shuntaro Itagaki & Mayumi Harigane & Yuriko Suzuki & Hirooki Yabe & Seiji Yasumura & Kenji Kamiya & Hitoshi Ohto, 2018. "Trajectories of Emotional Symptoms and Peer Relationship Problems in Children after Nuclear Disaster: Evidence from the Fukushima Health Management Survey," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(1), pages 1-10, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yuya Kashiwazaki & Hitomi Matsunaga & Makiko Orita & Yasuyuki Taira & Keiko Oishi & Noboru Takamura, 2022. "Occupational Difficulties of Disaster-Affected Local Government Employees in the Long-Term Recovery Phase after the Fukushima Nuclear Accident: A Cross-Sectional Study Using Modeling Analysis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(7), pages 1-10, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Shuhei Nomura & Michio Murakami, 2018. "Public Health Preparedness for and Response to Nuclear Disasters: An Editorial," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-4, November.
    2. Maiko Fukasawa & Maki Umeda & Tsuyoshi Akiyama & Naoko Horikoshi & Seiji Yasumura & Hirooki Yabe & Yuriko Suzuki & Evelyn J. Bromet & Norito Kawakami, 2022. "Worry about Radiation and Its Risk Factors Five to Ten Years after the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Disaster," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(24), pages 1-13, December.
    3. Masatsugu Orui & Satomi Nakajima & Yui Takebayashi & Akiko Ito & Maho Momoi & Masaharu Maeda & Seiji Yasumura & Hitoshi Ohto, 2018. "Mental Health Recovery of Evacuees and Residents from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Accident after Seven Years—Contribution of Social Network and a Desirable Lifestyle," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-16, October.
    4. Mooli Lahad & Ran Cohen & Stratos Fanaras & Dmitry Leykin & Penny Apostolopoulou, 2018. "Resiliency and Adjustment in Times of Crisis, the Case of the Greek Economic Crisis from a Psycho-social and Community Perspective," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 135(1), pages 333-356, January.
    5. Sydney T. Johnson & Susan M. Mason & Darin Erickson & Jaime C. Slaughter-Acey & Mary C. Waters, 2024. "Predicting Post-Disaster Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Symptom Trajectories: The Role of Pre-Disaster Traumatic Experiences," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 21(6), pages 1-16, June.
    6. Sarah R Lowe & Ethan J Raker & Mary C Waters & Jean E Rhodes, 2020. "Predisaster predictors of posttraumatic stress symptom trajectories: An analysis of low-income women in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(10), pages 1-19, October.
    7. Yuriko Suzuki & Yoshitake Takebayashi & Seiji Yasumura & Michio Murakami & Mayumi Harigane & Hirooki Yabe & Tetsuya Ohira & Akira Ohtsuru & Satomi Nakajima & Masaharu Maeda, 2018. "Changes in Risk Perception of the Health Effects of Radiation and Mental Health Status: The Fukushima Health Management Survey," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-11, June.
    8. Fernando Olivares-Delgado & Patricia P. Iglesias-Sánchez & María Teresa Benlloch-Osuna & Carlos de las Heras-Pedrosa & Carmen Jambrino-Maldonado, 2020. "Resilience and Anti-Stress during COVID-19 Isolation in Spain: An Analysis through Audiovisual Spots," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(23), pages 1-23, November.
    9. Etilé, Fabrice & Frijters, Paul & Johnston, David W. & Shields, Michael A., 2021. "Measuring resilience to major life events," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 598-619.
    10. Masatsugu Orui & Maiko Fukasawa & Naoko Horikoshi & Yuriko Suzuki & Norito Kawakami, 2020. "Development and Evaluation of a Gatekeeper Training Program Regarding Anxiety about Radiation Health Effects Following a Nuclear Power Plant Accident: A Single-Arm Intervention Pilot Trial," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(12), pages 1-15, June.
    11. Ran, Liuyi & Wang, Wo & Ai, Ming & Kong, Yiting & Chen, Jianmei & Kuang, Li, 2020. "Psychological resilience, depression, anxiety, and somatization symptoms in response to COVID-19: A study of the general population in China at the peak of its epidemic," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 262(C).
    12. Lowe, Sarah R. & Joshi, Spruha & Pietrzak, Robert H. & Galea, Sandro & Cerdá, Magdalena, 2015. "Mental health and general wellness in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 162-170.
    13. Keiko Oishi & Makiko Orita & Yasuyuki Taira & Yuya Kashiwazaki & Hitomi Matsunaga & Noboru Takamura, 2021. "Risk Perception of Health Risks Associated with Radiation Exposure among Residents of Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(24), pages 1-8, December.
    14. Nicolás C. Bronfman & Pamela C. Cisternas & Paula B. Repetto & Javiera V. Castañeda & Eliana Guic, 2020. "Understanding the Relationship Between Direct Experience and Risk Perception of Natural Hazards," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 40(10), pages 2057-2070, October.
    15. Lingnan He & Kaisheng Lai & Zhongxuan Lin & Zhihao Ma, 2018. "Media Exposure and General Trust as Predictors of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder: Ten Years after the 5.12 Wenchuan Earthquake in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-20, October.
    16. Svala Gudmundsdottir & Karen Larsen & Melissa Woods Nelson & Jarka Devine Mildorf & Dorota Molek-Winiarska, 2023. "Burnout and Resilience in Foreign Service Spouses during the Pandemic, and the Role of Organizational Support," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-13, January.
    17. Kosuke Shirai & Nobuaki Yoshizawa & Yoshitake Takebayashi & Michio Murakami, 2019. "Modeling reconstruction-related behavior and evaluation of influences of major information sources," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(8), pages 1-17, August.
    18. Masatsugu Orui & Chihiro Nakayama & Nobuaki Moriyama & Masaharu Tsubokura & Kiyotaka Watanabe & Takeo Nakayama & Minoru Sugita & Seiji Yasumura, 2020. "Current Psychological Distress, Post-traumatic Stress, and Radiation Health Anxiety Remain High for Those Who Have Rebuilt Permanent Homes Following the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(24), pages 1-14, December.
    19. Bianchi, Emily C. & Brockner, Joel, 2012. "In the eyes of the beholder? The role of dispositional trust in judgments of procedural and interactional fairness," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 118(1), pages 46-59.
    20. Bosmans, Mark W.G. & van der Velden, Peter G., 2015. "Longitudinal interplay between posttraumatic stress symptoms and coping self-efficacy: A four-wave prospective study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 23-29.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:14:p:7478-:d:593640. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.