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In their Article, Hikichi and colleagues report that social capital appeared to buffer the association between experience of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami and increased risk of cognitive impairment among older community-dwelling adults in Iwanuma City, Japan. We have three comments.
First, 1329 (37%) of 3156 survivors in the study lost relatives and friends after the 2011 disaster, and were analysed conjointly. However, the risk of cognitive decline might have differed depending on who was lost among relatives and friends. For instance, loss of a spouse could be thought to have delivered a more detrimental effect on social capital than loss of friends.
Second, although cognitive disability scores were adjusted for sex as a confounding factor, it is unclear whether gender differences in social capital affected the study results. Social capital and social networks might not have been evenly distributed between both genders, as a result of differing opportunities to invest in social capital between men and women, gender-specific socialisation processes, and differential societal expectations with regard to social networking. Particularly in a rural Japanese community, such as Iwanuma, the influence of gender differences might be amplified with the preservation of traditional gender roles. Additionally, it has been suggested that widowhood might be associated with increased mortality among Japanese men, but not Japanese women. As such, loss of a spouse might have had a different effect on physical and cognitive function depending on the gender of the surviving spouse.
Finally, changes in household composition after the disaster were not considered. Our recent study suggested that cohabitant children might be a key source of social support ...
Language: en |