TY - JOUR
T1 - Residential relocation and change in social capital
T2 - A natural experiment from the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami
AU - Hikichi, Hiroyuki
AU - Sawada, Yasuyuki
AU - Tsuboya, Toru
AU - Aida, Jun
AU - Kondo, Katsunori
AU - Koyama, Shihoko
AU - Kawachi, Ichiro
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by NIH grant R01 AG042463; Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (KAKENHI 23243070, KAKENHI 22390400, and KAKENHI 24390469); Health Labour Sciences Research Grant from the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare H22-Choju-Shitei-008 and H24-Choju-Wakate-009; and grant S0991035 from the Strategic Research Foundation Grant-Aided Project for Private Universities from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology.
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2017 The Authors, some rights reserved.
PY - 2017/7/5
Y1 - 2017/7/5
N2 - Social connections in the community (“social capital”) represent an important source of resilience in the aftermath of major disasters. However, little is known about how residential relocation due to housing destruction affects survivors’ social capital. We examined changes in social capital among survivors of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. People who lost their homes were resettled to new locations by two primary means: (i) group relocation to public temporary trailer housing or (ii) individual relocation, in which victims moved into government-provided housing by lottery or arranged for their own accommodation (market rental housing or private purchase/new construction). The baseline for our natural experiment was established 7 months before the 11 March 2011 disaster, when we conducted a survey of older community-dwelling adults who lived 80-km west of the earthquake epicenter. Approximately 2.5 years after the disaster, the follow-up survey gathered information about personal experiences of disaster as well as health status and social capital. Among 3421 people in our study, 79 people moved via group relocation to public temporary trailer housing, whereas 96 people moved on their own. The individual fixed-effects model showed that group relocation was associated with improved informal socializing and social participation (b coefficient = 0.053, 95% confidence interval: 0.011 to 0.095). In contrast, individual relocation was associated with declining informal socializing and social participation (b coefficient = −0.039, 95% confidence interval: −0.074 to −0.003). Group relocation, as compared to individual relocation, appeared to preserve social participation and informal socializing in the community.
AB - Social connections in the community (“social capital”) represent an important source of resilience in the aftermath of major disasters. However, little is known about how residential relocation due to housing destruction affects survivors’ social capital. We examined changes in social capital among survivors of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. People who lost their homes were resettled to new locations by two primary means: (i) group relocation to public temporary trailer housing or (ii) individual relocation, in which victims moved into government-provided housing by lottery or arranged for their own accommodation (market rental housing or private purchase/new construction). The baseline for our natural experiment was established 7 months before the 11 March 2011 disaster, when we conducted a survey of older community-dwelling adults who lived 80-km west of the earthquake epicenter. Approximately 2.5 years after the disaster, the follow-up survey gathered information about personal experiences of disaster as well as health status and social capital. Among 3421 people in our study, 79 people moved via group relocation to public temporary trailer housing, whereas 96 people moved on their own. The individual fixed-effects model showed that group relocation was associated with improved informal socializing and social participation (b coefficient = 0.053, 95% confidence interval: 0.011 to 0.095). In contrast, individual relocation was associated with declining informal socializing and social participation (b coefficient = −0.039, 95% confidence interval: −0.074 to −0.003). Group relocation, as compared to individual relocation, appeared to preserve social participation and informal socializing in the community.
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U2 - 10.1126/sciadv.1700426
DO - 10.1126/sciadv.1700426
M3 - Article
C2 - 28782024
AN - SCOPUS:85036501822
VL - 3
JO - Science advances
JF - Science advances
SN - 2375-2548
IS - 7
M1 - e1700426
ER -