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

Yuya Kashiwazaki, Hitomi Matsunaga, Makiko Orita, Yasuyuki Taira, Keiko Oishi and Noboru Takamura
Additional contact information
Yuya Kashiwazaki: Department of Global Health, Medicine and Welfare, Atomic Bomb Disease Institute, Nagasaki University Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Nagasaki 8528523, Japan
Hitomi Matsunaga: Department of Global Health, Medicine and Welfare, Atomic Bomb Disease Institute, Nagasaki University Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Nagasaki 8528523, Japan
Makiko Orita: Department of Global Health, Medicine and Welfare, Atomic Bomb Disease Institute, Nagasaki University Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Nagasaki 8528523, Japan
Yasuyuki Taira: Department of Global Health, Medicine and Welfare, Atomic Bomb Disease Institute, Nagasaki University Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Nagasaki 8528523, Japan
Keiko Oishi: Department of Global Health, Medicine and Welfare, Atomic Bomb Disease Institute, Nagasaki University Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Nagasaki 8528523, Japan
Noboru Takamura: Department of Global Health, Medicine and Welfare, Atomic Bomb Disease Institute, Nagasaki University Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Nagasaki 8528523, Japan

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 7, 1-10

Abstract: Local government officials play a central role in post-disaster community reconstruction. However, few studies have reported on the actual difficulties during a complex disaster involving a nuclear accident. A self-rated questionnaire survey was administered to a total of 583 public employees in four municipalities around the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. The relationship between universal occupational factors and radiation disaster-specific factors on job satisfaction and intention to leave the job due to radiation anxiety was evaluated using structural equation modeling. The results showed that interpersonal problems (β = −0.246) and service years (β = −0.127) were related to job satisfaction, whereas radiation-specific factors were not related to job satisfaction, and only to the intention to leave work due to radiation anxiety. A sense of coherence was associated with job satisfaction (β = 0.373) and intention to leave work due to radiation anxiety (β = −0.182), and it served as a moderator of the universal occupational factors and the radiation disaster-specific factors. Therefore, it is suggested that outcomes could be improved through increased stress coping capacity by providing support for relationships and radiation risk communication to public employees during the disaster recovery period.

Keywords: Fukushima; nuclear disaster; local government employee; job satisfaction; radiation anxiety; sense of coherence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/7/3979/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/7/3979/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:7:p:3979-:d:780723

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().