Citation

Mori K. J. Occup. Health 2019; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Affiliation

Department of Occupational Health Practice and Management, Institute of Industrial Ecological Sciences, University of Occupational and Environmental Health, Kitakyushu, Japan.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Japan Society for Occupational Health)

DOI

10.1002/1348-9585.12084

PMID

31502360

Abstract

Various natural and man‐made disasters occur around the world. Many disasters directly damage workplaces and affect business activities, such as production and sales. In such workplaces, the employees are affected physically and mentally: to maintain their health following a disaster, occupational health should respond to their various needs. In ordinary occupational health, the occurrence of adverse health effects is prevented by assessing health risks in the workplace environment and for workers and by reducing the risks acceptable levels. Such an approach is based on the assumption that there are no significant changes in the workplace during the process from risk assessment to risk reduction. However, in the event of disasters, occupational health staff have to predict day‐to‐day changes in employees’ conditions and the occurrence of occupational health needs; subsequently, they take appropriate action. To do so, occupational health staff should learn from experience with past disasters. However, there have been few reports about occupational health activities in the workplace following a disaster. One reason for this is that companies may be reluctant to disclose information about health issues following a disaster if the cause of the disaster is attributable to errors on the part of the company.

In the case of the Great East Japan Earthquake, which was an unprecedented disaster that occurred on March 11, 2011, many valuable scientific articles and reports on occupational health have been published through the efforts and cooperation of many stakeholders. Among them, many articles are related to the accident at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) of Tokyo Electric Power Company, which occurred as a result of the tsunami that followed the earthquake. Workers affected by the nuclear accident have been categorized as ...

Language: en