Citation

Gero K, Hikichi H, Aida J, Kondo K, Kawachi I. Am. J. Epidemiol. 2020; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Affiliation

Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, Oxford University Press)

DOI

10.1093/aje/kwaa085

PMID

32406501

Abstract

The strength of social connections in the community ("social capital") is hypothesized to be a crucial ingredient in disaster resilience. We examined whether community-level social capital is correlated with the ability to maintain functional capacity among older residents who experienced the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. The baseline of our cohort (mean age 74 years) was established in 2010, seven months before the disaster in Iwanuma, a Japanese city located 80-km from the epicenter. Disaster related personal experiences (e.g., housing damage/relocation) were assessed through a follow-up survey (n=3594; follow-up rate: 82.1%) conducted in 2013, two and a half years after the earthquake. Multiple membership multilevel models were used to evaluate the associations between functional capacity - measured by the Instrumental Activities of Daily Living scale - and three sub-scales of community-level social capital; social cohesion, social participation, and reciprocity. Community-level social participation was associated with a lower risk of functional decline after disaster exposure. The average level of social participation in the community also mitigated the adverse impact of housing damage on functional status, suggesting a buffering mechanism.

© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Language: en

Keywords

Activities of Daily Living; Disasters; Multilevel Analysis; Social Capital; Social Participation