Balancing the risk of the evacuation and sheltering-in-place options: a survival study following Japan's 2011 Fukushima nuclear incident.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

The decision to evacuate or shelter-in-place is fundamental to emergency response, especially for a vulnerable population. While an elevated risk of mortality due to a hasty, unplanned evacuation has been well documented, there is little research on and knowledge about the health consequences of sheltering-in-place in disaster contexts. We compared hospital mortality in patients who sheltered-in-place (non-evacuees) after the incident with the baseline preincident mortality and articulated postincident circumstances of the hospital while sheltering-in-place.

Participants

We considered all 484 patients admitted to Takano Hospital (located 22 km South of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant) from 1 January 2008 to 31 December 2016.

Methods

Significant dif

SUBMITTER: Shimada Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6067355 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature