A report that Fukushima residents are concerned about radiation from Land, Food and Radon

Abstract

Abstract The Great East Japan Earthquake and subsequent TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster occurred on 11 March 2011, which caused the leakage of radioactive materials into the environment. In this study, we report public concerns about radiation in Fukushima and Tokyo almost one year after the nuclear disaster. We examined the public concerns by analyzing the data from 1022 participants, 555 in Fukushima and 467 in Tokyo. They were asked whether they were concerned about radiation from some of six different types of sources, which could be answered in a binary way, ‘yes’ or ‘no’. We found not only similarities, but also significant differences in the degrees of concerns between Fukushima residents and Tokyo ones. Fukushima residents more concerned about radiation from land, food and radon in larger rate than that of Tokyo ones, while Tokyo residents were concerned about radiation from medical care. Residents in neither location were concerned about radiation from space. Our results suggested that careful risk communication should be undertaken, adaptively organized depending on location and other factors, e.g. comprehension about radiation, presence of the experience of evacuation, and also age and gender of the people.