Problems of Fukushima Health Management Survey

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The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station meltdown changed Kenjii Ookubo’s healthy lifestyle plan.[1] A March 2011 tsunami caused three nuclear reactor’s failure. The government provided temporary housing after thousands abandoned their original homes, this included Kenji Ookuboo. Along with the physical suffering, Kenji also suffered from mental illness and soon became an alcoholic. The mental health problem became a prominent issue for victims after the meltdown.[2] The Fukushima Health Management Survey was meant to provide support to victims, but the study had serious flaws, including financial mismanagement and a poor study design that failed to take into account participants' distrust of authority in the wake of the disaster as well as general cultural bias against sharing personal information. Scientists should revise the study and provide the psychological treatment that victims still need.

What is Fukushima Health Management Survey? Fukushima Health Management Survey comprises the Basic Survey (radiation dose estimates) and detailed surveys (Thyroid Ultrasound Examination, Comprehensive Health Check, Mental Health and Lifestyle Survey and Pregnancy and Birth Survey). The huge percentage of this survey is designed for mental health issues. However, the survey did not function as a support for victims.

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First of all, victims could not trust authority, thus experts had difficulty to gather convincing health survey results. The Self-Determination Theory (SDT) assumes that people are active organisms which have tendencies toward psychological growth, but the development requires social resources as supports and the social context can either support or thwart growth. In an article called Understanding Respondent Motivation, Pete Cape points out that under SDT, when respondent lacks of intention or trust to act, the activity has no value and no desirable results exist. This is the same situation that most Fukushima evacuees are now facing. They cannot trust authority, thus their responses are invalid. Although Japanese government responded to nuclear crisis in time, evacuees wondered what it did for the protection of nuclear power station and reconstruction. After the water wall stroke nuclear stations, there were at least fourteen hours between the loss of electricity to power the pumps keeping cooling water on the nuclear fuel and a meltdown. Japanese government did not take actions to examine the aftermath and the radioactivity scale was shown to the public twelve days after the crisis began.[3] Even after the nuclear crisis, Japanese government misspent reconstruction fund on unrelated projects.[4] Yuka Togawa, one of the evacuees, desperately said that though the government officials said that they were trying to construct public housing for evacuees, but nothing was there. There are more and more queries rise among evacuees, which creates difficulty for authority to conduct mental health survey. After filling out health survey, Yuka was invited to talk about her issues to mental health experts on phone, but Yuka refused. For her, it was useless.[1] 

Secondly, Fukushima Health Management Survey is inefficient because of unique Japanese cultural background.[5] The mental health survey is a significant aspect of clinical psychology which helps mental health experts to engage in researches, consultation and assessments. While the development of clinical psychology in Japan is difficult since Japanese are more concerned about personal issues and are not willing to talk about those things. Hirooki Yabe, a neuropsychiatrist at Fukushima Medical University, said that only about 40% of adult evacuees responded to survey.[1] Because of no cultural habits to visit clinical psychologists, normal people will not go to clinics, unless he or she undergoes severe mental illness. Thus, Noriaki Muraro, representative director of Schwarz Pharma Japan, said that Japan was still a developing country concerned about clinical trials.[6] In this way, the results are not reliable and the mental health survey does not serve as a support for Japanese evacuees.

Thirdly, despite the cold responses from evacuees, the huge executable cost also hinders the implementation of Fukushima Health Management Survey. The practice of the survey not only relies on the paper works, but also consists of follow-up phone calls and walk-in clinics which specializing in mental health. All these steps require money. Seiji Yasumura, one of the leaders of Fukushima Health Management Survey Team, once said that the government just gave three billion Japanese Yen (US $34 million) a year, but the cost was twice that amount, thus the survey was under financial pressure.[1] The most important step in the survey is walk-in clinics, which offers face-to-face interviews with victims and gives scientists opportunities for close examination. However, Fukushima Medical University presented that only 100 out of 210,000 evacuees have been face-to-face interviewed by psychologists so far.[1] Money shortage prohibits the conduction. Although Fukushima Medical University appeals to public for donation, it does not receive enough supports.

Although the Fukushima Health Management Survey does not function properly, it does help government officials to estimate the radioactive exposure and help them control orders. However, the Fukushima Health Management Survey should do more than that. In order for the survey to be more efficient, scientists should take money budget, social effects and trust between government and evacuees into account. By solving those difficulties, Fukushima Health Management Survey will be valuable.







Sources:

[1] http://www.nature.com/news/fukushima-fallout-of-fear-1.12194

[2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/08/stress-fukushima-health-issue-mental-distress_n_2837280.html

[3] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/09/world/asia/09japan.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

[4] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20150364

[5] http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00207598408247514

[6] http://www.outsourcing-pharma.com/Clinical-Development/Developing-Japan-intent-on-clinical-trial-catch-up

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