The Effects of the Passage of Time from the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake on the Public’s Anxiety about a Variety of Hazards

Kazuya Nakayachi and Kazuhisa Nagaya
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Kazuya Nakayachi: Faculty of Psychology, Doshisha University, Kyotanabe-shi, Kyoto 610-0394, Japan
Kazuhisa Nagaya: Graduate School of Psychology, Doshisha University Kyotanabe-shi, Kyoto 610-0394, Japan

IJERPH, 2016, vol. 13, issue 9, 1-12

Abstract: This research investigated whether the Japanese people’s anxiety about a variety of hazards, including earthquakes and nuclear accidents, has changed over time since the Tohoku Earthquake in 2011. Data from three nationwide surveys conducted in 2008, 2012, and 2015 were compared to see the change in societal levels of anxiety toward 51 types of hazards. The same two-phase stratified random sampling method was used to create the list of participants in each survey. The results showed that anxiety about earthquakes and nuclear accidents had increased for a time after the Tohoku Earthquake, and then decreased after a four-year time frame with no severe earthquakes and nuclear accidents. It was also revealed that the anxiety level for some hazards other than earthquakes and nuclear accidents had decreased at ten months after the Earthquake, and then remained unchanged after the four years. Therefore, ironically, a major disaster might decrease the public anxiety in general at least for several years.

Keywords: the Tohoku Earthquake; the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant; anxiety about hazards; time passage (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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