The Great East Japan Earthquake Disaster: a compilation of published literature on health needs and relief activities, March 2011-September 2012

Objective: To provide an overview of the health needs following the Great East Japan Earthquake Disaster and the lessons identified. Methods: The relevant of peer review and grey literature articles in English and Japanese, and books in Japanese, published from March 2011 to September 2012 were searched. Medline, Embase, PsycINFO, and HMIC were searched for journal articles in English, CiNii for those in Japanese, and Amazon.co.jp. for books. Descriptions of the health needs at the time of the disaster were identified using search terms and relevant articles were reviewed. Findings: 85 English articles, 246 Japanese articles and 13 books were identified, the majority of which were experience/activity reports. Regarding health care needs, chronic conditions such as hypertension and diabetes were reported to be the greatest burden from the early stages of the disaster. Loss of medication and medical records appeared to worsen the situation. Many sub-acute symptoms were attributed to the contaminated sludge of the tsunamis and the poor living environment at the evacuation centres. Particularly vulnerable groups were identified as the elderly, those with mental health illnesses and the disabled. Although the response of the rescue activities was prompt, it sometimes failed to meet the on-site needs due to the lack of communication and coordination. Conclusion: The lessons identified from this mega-disaster highlighted the specific health needs of the vulnerable populations, particularly the elderly and those with non-communicable diseases. Further research is needed so that the lessons identified can be incorporated into future contingency plans in Japan and elsewhere

Medication supply for people evacuated during disasters.

© 2015 Chinese Cochrane Center, West China Hospital of Sichuan University and Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.Medication loss is a major problem in disaster settings, and it is crucial for patients to bring their medication and healthcare items with them when they leave their homes during an evacuation. This article is based on a systematic literature review on medication loss, the objectives of which were to identify the extent and implications of medication loss, to identify the burden of prescription refill, and to make recommendations on effective preparedness. The review revealed that medication loss, prescription loss and refills, and the loss of medical aids are a significant burden on the medical relief teams. The medical aids are not limited to drugs, but include routine medications, medical/allergy records, devices for specific care and daily life, and emergency medications. One possible solution is to make a personal emergency pack and for people to carry this with them at all times. To ensure that patients are adequately prepared, stakeholders, especially health professionals, need to be actively involved in the preparation plans. Since our findings have little impact on disaster risk reduction unless shared broadly, we are now taking actions to spread our findings, such as presenting in conferences and via posters, in order to raise awareness among patients and healthcare professionals. As part of these activities, our findings were presented at the Evidence Aid Symposium on 20 September 2014, at Hyderabad, India

The Great East Japan Earthquake Disaster: distribution of hospital damage in Miyagi prefecture.

Copyright © 2014 World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine.Introduction: In catastrophic events, a key to reducing health risks is to maintain functioning of local health facilities. However, little research has been conducted on what types and levels of care are the most likely to be affected by catastrophic events.Problem: The Great East Japan Earthquake Disaster (GEJED) was one of a few megadisasters that have occurred in an industrialized society. This research aimed to develop an analytical framework for the holistic understanding of hospital damage due to the disaster.Methods: Hospital damage data in Miyagi Prefecture at the time of the GEJED were collected retrospectively. Due to the low response rate of questionnaire-based surveillance (7.7%), publications of the national and local governments, medical associations, other nonprofit organizations, and home web pages of hospitals were used, as well as literature and news sources. The data included information on building damage, electricity and water supply, and functional status after the earthquake. Geographical data for hospitals, coastline, local boundaries, and the inundated areas, as well as population size and seismic intensity were collected from public databases. Logistic regression was conducted to identify the risk factors for hospitals ceasing inpatient and outpatient services. The impact was displayed on maps to show the geographical distribution of damage.Results: Data for 143 out of 147 hospitals in Miyagi Prefecture (97%) were obtained. Building damage was significantly associated with closure of both inpatient and outpatient wards. Hospitals offering tertiary care were more resistant to damage than those offering primary care, while those with a higher proportion of psychiatric care beds were more likely to cease functioning, even after controlling for hospital size, seismic intensity, and distance from the coastline.Conclusions: Implementation of building regulations is vital for all health care facilities, irrespective of function. Additionally, securing electricity and water supplies is vital for hospitals at risk for similar events in the future. Improved data sharing on hospital viability in a future event is essential for disaster preparedness

Disaster-driven evacuation and medication loss: a systematic literature review

AIM: The aim of this systematic literature review was to identify the extent and implications of medication loss and the burden of prescription refill on medical relief teams following extreme weather events and other natural hazards. METHOD: The search strategy followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA). Key health journal databases (Medline, Embase, PsycINFO, Maternity and Infant Care, and Health Management Information Consortium (HMIC)) were searched via the OvidSP search engine. Search terms were identified by consulting MeSH terms. The inclusion criteria comprised articles published from January 2003 to August 2013, written in English and containing an abstract. The exclusion criteria included abstracts for conferences or dissertations, book chapters and articles written in a language other than English. A total of 70 articles which fulfilled the inclusion criteria were included in this systematic review. RESULTS: All relevant information was collated regarding medication loss, prescription loss and refills, and medical aids loss which indicated a significant burden on the medical relief teams. Data also showed the difficulty in filling prescriptions due to lack of information from the evacuees. People with chronic conditions are most at risk when their medication is not available. This systematic review also showed that medical aids such as eye glasses, hearing aids as well as dental treatment are a high necessity among evacuees. DISCUSSION: This systematic review revealed that a considerable number of patients lose their medication during evacuation, many lose essential medical aids such as insulin pens and many do not bring prescriptions with them when evacuated.. Since medication loss is partly a responsibility of evacuees, understanding the impact of medication loss may lead to raising awareness and better preparations among the patients and health care professionals. People who are not prepared could have worse outcomes and many risk dying when their medication is not available

The consequences of feminization in breeding groups of wild fish

EHP is a publication of the U.S. government. Publication of EHP lies in the public domain and is therefore without copyright. Research articles from EHP may be used freely; however, articles from the News section of EHP may contain photographs or figures copyrighted by other commercial organizations and individuals that may not be used without obtaining prior approval from both the EHP editors and the holder of the copyright. Use of any materials published in EHP should be acknowledged (for example, "Reproduced with permission from Environmental Health Perspectives") and a reference provided for the article from which the material was reproduced.BACKGROUND: The feminization of nature by endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) is a key environmental issue affecting both terrestrial and aquatic wildlife. A crucial and as yet unanswered question is whether EDCs have adverse impacts on the sustainability of wildlife populations. There is widespread concern that intersex fish are reproductively compromised, with potential population-level consequences. However, to date, only in vitro sperm quality data are available in support of this hypothesis. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to examine whether wild endocrine-disrupted fish can compete successfully in a realistic breeding scenario. METHODS: In two competitive breeding experiments using wild roach (Rutilus rutilus), we used DNA microsatellites to assign parentage and thus determine reproductive success of the adults. RESULTS: In both studies, the majority of intersex fish were able to breed, albeit with varying degrees of success. In the first study, where most intersex fish were only mildly feminized, body length was the only factor correlated with reproductive success. In the second study, which included a higher number of more severely intersex fish, reproductive performance was negatively correlated with severity of intersex. The intersex condition reduced reproductive performance by up to 76% for the most feminized individuals in this study, demonstrating a significant adverse effect of intersex on reproductive performance. CONCLUSION: Feminization of male fish is likely to be an important determinant of reproductive performance in rivers where there is a high prevalence of moderately to severely feminized males.Funding for this work was derived through the Endocrine Disruption in Catchments project, which was supported by the U.K. Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs and the U.K. Environment Agency

A Comparative Study of the Magnetization Process of Two-Dimensional Antiferromagnets

Plateaux in the magnetization curves of the square, triangular and hexagonal lattice spin-1/2 XXZ antiferromagnet are investigated. One finds a zero magnetization plateau (corresponding to a spin-gap) on the square and hexagonal lattice with Ising-like anisotropies, and a plateau with one third of the saturation magnetization on the triangular lattice which survives a small amount of easy-plane anisotropy. Here we start with transfer matrix computations for the Ising limit and continue with series in the XXZ-anisotropy for plateau-boundaries using the groundstates of the Ising limit. The main focus is then a numerical computation of the magnetization curves with anisotropies in the vicinity of the isotropic situation. Finally, we discuss the universality class associated to the asymptotic behaviour of the magnetization curve close to saturation, as observed numerically in two and higher dimensions.Comment: 21 pages plain TeX (with macro package included), 7 PostScript figures included using psfig.st

The hole spectral function and the relationship between overlap functions, natural orbitals and the one-body density matrix in nuclei

A method to calculate the hole spectral function in the discrete part of the spectrum is suggested within the natural orbital representation of the one-body density matrix of A-nucleon system using its relationship with the overlap functions of the eigenstates in the (A-1)-nucleon system

Learning From Early Attempts to Generalize Darwinian Principles to Social Evolution

Copyright University of Hertfordshire & author.Evolutionary psychology places the human psyche in the context of evolution, and addresses the Darwinian processes involved, particularly at the level of genetic evolution. A logically separate and potentially complementary argument is to consider the application of Darwinian principles not only to genes but also to social entities and processes. This idea of extending Darwinian principles was suggested by Darwin himself. Attempts to do this appeared as early as the 1870s and proliferated until the early twentieth century. But such ideas remained dormant in the social sciences from the 1920s until after the Second World War. Some lessons can be learned from this earlier period, particularly concerning the problem of specifying the social units of selection or replication

Examination of the astrophysical S-factors of the radiative proton capture on 2H, 6Li, 7Li, 12C and 13C

Astrophysical S-factors of radiative capture reactions on light nuclei have been calculated in a two-cluster potential model, taking into account the separation of orbital states by the use of Young schemes. The local two-body potentials describing the interaction of the clusters were determined by fitting scattering data and properties of bound states. The many-body character of the problem is approximatively accounted for by Pauli forbidden states. An important feature of the approach is the consideration of the dependence of the interaction potential between the clusters on the orbital Young schemes, which determine the permutation symmetry of the nucleon system. Proton capture on 2H, 6Li, 7Li, 12C, and 13C was analyzed in this approach. Experimental data at low energies were described reasonably well when the phase shifts for cluster-cluster scattering, extracted from precise data, were used. This shows that decreasing the experimental error on differential elastic scattering cross sections of light nuclei at astrophysical energies is very important also to allow a more accurate phase shift analysis. A future increase in precision will allow more definite conclusions regarding the reaction mechanisms and astrophysical conditions of thermonuclear reactions.Comment: 40p., 9 fig., 83 ref. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1005.1794, arXiv:1112.1760, arXiv:1005.198