Long-term survey planned on disaster victims' physical, mental health

TOKYO, May 22 Kyodo -
The health ministry plans to launch a 10-year follow-up survey on the physical and mental health of a total of 30,000 people in northeastern Japan that was hit hard by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, ministry officials said Saturday.
It will select 10,000 people each in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures to check the various physical and mental effects caused by direct experience of the disaster, living in shelters for prolonged periods and how their conditions change over the years.
Professional care will be arranged for those found to be in need, the officials said.
The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare is expected to set up in June a team of doctors, nurses and other experts selected from medical facilities in the prefectures as well as national hospitals.
The ministry believes that the results of the survey will be useful for drawing up medium- and long-term relief and welfare measures as well as health care services in the event of future disasters, they said.
''The population of the affected areas was already aging (before the disaster) and there were many people living without relatives,'' said Ichiro Tsuji, professor at the graduate school of Tohoku University. ''We need to reduce the risk of those elderly people becoming sick as much as possible and to create new models of cooperation among community members.''
The expert team will interview those selected about living conditions and their employment situations before and after the disaster, and provide medical checks every six months.
Mental checkups will also be conducted to detect for signs of depression and other conditions such as posttraumatic stress disorder.
The ministry plans to carry out separate surveys to determine the damage to medical and nursing care facilities for the elderly in affected areas, the officials added.