保健医療科学

2018Vol.67 No.1 p.93－102

Topics: Lessons learned on public health from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident＜ Review ＞
Lessons learned from radiation risk communication activities
regarding the Fukushima nuclear accident
Ichiro Yamaguchi1), Tsutomu Shimura1), Hiroshi Terada1), Erik R. Svendsen2), Naoki Kunugita1)
1)

Department of Environmental Health, National Institute of Public Health2)

Division of Environmental Health, Department of Public Health Sciences, Medical University of South Carolina
Abstract
Introduction: The Fukushima nuclear disaster has brought numerous difficulties to the Japanese society,such as mental health issues, and secondary health issues during the recovery phase of the nuclear disaster.
To promote a balanced public health policy, sound risk communication strategies are required.
Methods: Risk communication guidelines and public health activities regarding radiation risk communication
after the Fukushima nuclear disaster were reviewed within the scientific literature by using the PubMedelectronic database for medical journals to clarify the current perception of the risk communication issues.
Results: There was a consistent recognition of the applicability and importance of risk communication
within the Fukushima accident, as was evident in each guideline and journal article which included both the
MeSH Major Topics "radiation" and "communication" with the term ”Fukushima” [All Fields]. Basic conceptsof each Japanese risk communication guideline are consistent with guidelines issued by other internationalorganizations.
Discussion: These risk communication principles indicated in the guidelines were useful for establishinggood practices in local communities to empower residents and strengthen community function, potentiallyreducing the secondary health impacts induced by the Fukushima accident. However, the strengths withinsocial sciences are thought to create new challenges because the ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI)
are newly recognized difficulties within local public health activities regarding radiation risk communication,and there is only a limited number of articles focused on these relationships and radiation risk communication
within the social sciences. The collaborative problem-solving strategy should be strengthened to deal with thedifficult issues in local communities since ELSI are all within local public health activities regarding radiation
risk communication. Therefore, a collaborative problem-solving strategy within social sciences is a challenge
issue to study.
Conclusions: Successful risk communication practices were helpful to the local community and supportedby the local community. They were observable in local communities by employing the strategic approaches
directed by a team organized with many experts in local issues, including local risk communicators.
Established risk communication guidelines are helpful, especially regarding the ELSI of science andtechnology.
keywords: nuclear disaster, risk communication, public health, radiation(accepted for publication, 19th January 2018)

Corresponding author: Ichiro Yamaguchi
2-3-6 Minami, Wako, Saitama 351-0197, Japan.
Tel. +81-48-458-6259; Fax +81-48-458-6270; Email: yamaguchi.i.aa@niph.go.jp

J. Natl. Inst. Public Health, 67 (1) : 201893

Ichiro Yamaguchi, Tsutomu Shimura, Hiroshi Terada, Erik R. Svendsen, Naoki Kunugita

I．Introduction
Released radioactive nuclides due to the Fukushima
Daiichi nuclear power station accident caused by thetsunami of 11 March 2011 in Japan have a tremendous
impact on Japanese society. Since that accident, there has
been various countermeasures taken to protect the publicfrom radiation. However, even though the radiation doseto each resident was successfully minimized, includinginternal radiation by the early evacuation and various
related countermeasures in most cases, the nuclear disasterhas brought numerous difficulties to the society, such as
mental health issues [1,2], and secondary health issues [3]during the recovery phase of the nuclear disaster. Why isrisk communication important for the recovery from thedisaster? According to Reconstruction agency of Japan, thetotal number of disaster-related deaths from the Great East
Japan Earthquake was 3,647 up to September 30, 2017 andamong them 2,202 death cases occurred in Fukushima [4].
These deaths were caused by indirect effects of the disaster,
showing the importance of a balanced public health policy.
How to get a balanced public health policy is important
for the thyroid ultrasound examination survey that is apart of the Fukushima health management survey, since
it is recognized that over-diagnosis issues are a concern
in the thyroid ultrasound examination survey [5-6]. The
primary purpose of the thyroid ultrasound examination
survey is not research but to help residents by providing
an opportunity for examination to each resident as a publichealth service. However, there is a common concern thatthe thyroid cancer screening program in Fukushima might
be potentially problematic to public health [7].
However, each resident has a basic human right toknow his/her health status caused by the accident and tochoose to participate in scientific research even though
it might impact her/his family by doing so. Also, the local
government has the responsibility to protect the healthof their community as best they can, and should provide
the opportunity to examine his/her health concerns as apublic health service. Had the Fukushima Government
not providing thyroid screening then the public may havethought that the government did not care about theirhealth, or that they did not understand the health risks.
Therefore, although there are concerns about the overallpublic health benefits of the thyroid screening program, notdoing the thyroid cancer screening program in Fukushima
and doing nothing to inform the public about their current
health might have been even more harmful to public health.
For any public health screening program, informing not
only the benefits but also the risks should be an essential
procedure, and transparency of such a public health program94

is also important. In the case of radiation effects from
insoluble radioactive particles [8], how can public healthofficials inform the biological risks including subclinicalchanges in the respiratory system properly to residents? To
assess such health effects due to a disaster good disasterepidemiological studies should be carried out involving andsupported by affected people [9].
Therefore, how to communicate with the public regarding
radiation and its risk has been become a serious social
issue. To facilitate recovery activities in affected areas,
continuous public health risk communication in the longterm perspective is needed by collaborating with therelevant stakeholders [10].
After the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the basic strategies
of risk communication were issued from the Ministry of
Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japanby adding existing guidelines issued from each ministry.
After considering the specific problems regarding thenuclear disaster many lessons to be learnt are mentioned asa useful resource in the next section.
To f a c i l i t a t e m o re e f f e c t i v e a n d p r a c t i c a l r i s kcommunication activities including the long recovery phase
after the nuclear disaster, the local practices used during
the existing exposure situation after the nuclear disasterwere reviewed in this paper to inform the development andimprovement of current guidelines.

II．Domestic guidelines on risk communication issued by each Ministry to facilitate
good risk communication
According to the National Research Council, USA, ʻRisk
communicationʼ is a component of risk management, whichis the selection of risk control options. It is the processthat provides the information on which government,
industry, or individual decision makers base their choices.
Successful risk communication does not guarantee thatrisk management decisions will maximize general welfare;it only ensures that decision makers will understand what
is known about the implications for welfare of the available
options (National Research Council, 1989) [11]. By utilizing
this definition, domestic guidelines on risk communication
have been established such as risk communication on foodsafety by Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW)[12], how to promote risk communication on chemical
substances by Ministry of Environment (MOE) [13], thewebsite on consumersʼ opinions and risk communication
including the text book on risk communication regarding
health issues explaining the principle and practice by the
Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF)[14], the website on risk communication including the

J. Natl. Inst. Public Health, 67 (1) : 2018

Lessons learned from radiation risk communication activities regarding the Fukushima nuclear accident
explanation of the typical misunderstanding of risk
communication by the Ministry of Economy, Trade andIndustry(METI) [15]. National Institute of Technology and
Evaluation (NITE) also provides the basic guidelines for risk
communication by introducing good examples and a tool forrisk assessment that is able to be easily understood [16].
Those guidelines were issued before the nuclear disaster.
In addition to these guidelines, several new guidelines
were issued after the Fukushima nuclear accident. One ofthem was "Risk Communication Promotion Measures" thatwas issued by the Safety and Security Science Technology
and Social Collaboration Committee of the Ministry of
Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology(MEXT) in March, 2014 [17]. The basic concept of thisguideline is shown at Fig.1. Related to this guideline,"Risk Communication Case Study Report" was issued by
the Science Communication Center of the Japan Scienceand Technology Agency Science Committee in March,2014 including various attempts at including radiation
issues. This guideline discussed the issue of subjectivityof risk perception by indicating the factors that influencerisk perception such as fairness and spontaneity [18].
Furthermore, it is described that the importance of the
aspect of social justice issues since fairness is related tosocial inequality and spontaneity is related to the humanrights matter of self-determination. In other words, risk
perception and related emotions to them reflects social
issue rather than individual psychological issues. Similarly,
artificiality relates to risk perception since artificiality
means that the risk is caused by human activity. Therefore,
this risk would be recognized as a matter of "responsibility"
since the stakeholders are responsible for these risks andtrust is also an important factor in the society. That is thebasic concept of the ethical, legal, and social implications(ELSI) of science and technology [19].
These discussions in this guideline are basicallyconsistent with guidelines issued by internationalorganizations [20-27] and the other guidelines issued byeach member state or the European Union [28-32].
How to consider the specific characteristics of thenuclear accident in risk communication? This guideline isreflected lessons learnt from the nuclear disaster response.
Therefore, this guideline deals with risk communication
carefully by emphasizing the importance of dealing withpublic concerns and social and normative issues not by
just thinking simply about scientific literacy only, but
recognizing that public concerns are "emotional" and could
be "wrong" risk recognition in terms of science without
thinking about hidden motivation. Especially in thesituation of confusion, people become sensitive to social
and normative problems, and if a communicator ignores
the social / normative aspects and tries to provide risk
comparison unilaterally from the probabilistic viewpoints,
it would lead to dissatisfaction and anger of people. Dueto the difficult situations after the nuclear disaster, it
became needed to have the basic principle and philosophyof risk communication and this guideline is reliable and auseful tool for risk communication and previous study also
supports this view [33]. As a good example, the training
course provided by the NIPH have lectures made by asocial scientist and the feedback from the class participants
is very positive. Although the number of scientific papers
is limited, there are many real activities collaborating withgood social scientists. Focusing on food safety, “Report on
the risk communication regarding food safety” issued by
Food Safety Commission in Japan in May, 2015. This report
is more focused on food safety and consensus building inthe society.

Outline of Risk Communication Strategy

Definition risk communication

Social involvement among wide range of stakeholders for a proper risk management by
sharing the information and way of thinking

Open‐ended activities

IssuesBased on mutual understanding, each stakeholder thinks in connection
with own behavior modification by facilitating sympathy oriented
communication

Decision making on risk remains mostly at personnel level…
• Gaps between information provider and participants on selecting topics
Lacking the basic perspective on risk communication, risk communication is not easy.

Basic Perspective

Effective announcement of Risk information

Differences of risk perception
Neutrality of intermediate communicator and・ Personnel vs social（consider emotion） independence of the experts
・ Information asymmetry between
Confidence‐building among stakeholders
information provider and people（caused
in consequence of considering the basic
by differences on scientific knowledge）
perspective
・ Difference between ruler perspective
Practical activities of dialogue, think
and Party perspective
together, work together
1
MEXT: promotion policy of risk communication（2014）

MEXT: promotion policy of risk communication（2014）
Original version is made by MEXT and it is modified and translated by the authors.

Fig.1 Outline of Risk Communication Strategy

J. Natl. Inst. Public Health, 67 (1) : 201895

Ichiro Yamaguchi, Tsutomu Shimura, Hiroshi Terada, Erik R. Svendsen, Naoki Kunugita

III．The example of risk communication
activities regarding the Fukushima accident
According to the PubMed electronic database for medical
journals, six articles were identified by "radiation"[MeSH
Major Topic] AND "communication"[MeSH Major Topic])
AND Fukushima [All Fields]. These are papers describedwith unique approaches utilizing personal [34] and local [35]measurement, general reviews [36-37], a review focusing
on radio phobia [38] and media analysis among European
countries providing a practical guideline for sound public
communication about radiation risks [39].
Risk perception is subjective and depends on the
background situation as well. Murakami summarized majorrisk communication activities in Fukushima (Murakami2017) [33]. Adding this comprehensive review, the uniqueactivities provided by Date city, Fukushima would be worth
mentioning. Since risk communication is still not an easytask and the majority of residents do not show their demand
for radiation risk communication events during the survey
conducted by each municipality and the Government ofJapan such as 9.4% in Tomioka [40]. Although presentationand explanation of radiation risks to affected people isrecognized as a difficult task, it was observed that showing
quantitative risks information using loss of life expectancy
by answering questions is acceptable with participants byconsidering and emphasizing the importance of environment
justice and fairness as the basic concept to think about withthese difficult issues. Emphasizing again, risk comparison
is not indicated as a in one-way method. Instead of this,comparisons were demonstrated by answering questions
from each participant in a frank atmosphere coordinatedby clinical psychologists since subjective risk comparison
is a good way to recognize the size of the risk although apressed risk comparison by someone else is not acceptable[18]. This method is implemented by referring to various
guidelines indicated in the previous section. Therefore,
common recognition of these guidelines among relevantorganizations should be promoted to deal with these difficult
tasks.
Case study 1: Date city case, collaborative activities
with NPO and residents
For the public health service regarding radiation issues,a specific nonprofit organization (NPO) plays an importantrole. This NPO is named “Warm- heart” and it fosters thelong-term supporters who live together in the affectedarea so that children and their families in Fukushima canovercome the difficulties burdened by the nuclear accident
and fosters a healthy and bright future both mentally and96

physically. This NPO is consisted by clinical psychologist,
nursery teacher, pediatrician, health fitness programmer
etc. By gathering these expertsʼ efforts together andparticipating in municipal affairs activities, they are working
on community activities with local governments. The
significance of this task was described below by looking
back on the activities of this work.
An analysis was done of the progress of supportive
activities of the public health center after the nuclear
accident and tried to analyze the problems and their efforts
to solve their emergence in the development of activities
as a case of external support in community health activities
after the nuclear disaster. Then various investigations haverevealed that nuclear disaster not only brings radiation
risk to people but also brings a psychological burden. In
that situation, community health activities carried out bymunicipalities in consideration of psychological care arealso accepted and supported by participants in each region.
During fiscal years 2011-2015, 224 local events were heldin each region in the city and total participants number
was 2,434 including some duplication. Date city provides
personal consultation service regarding radiation and total
participants number was 344 including duplication during
fiscal years 2012-2015. They had accumulated experience in
activities in these areas collaborating with local community
leaders.
It seemed that by employing the clinical psychologists
and involving them in the local municipal activities in thecommunity, it made meaningful opportunities to draw out
the power of the area and each event was filled with fun.
Even in the case of taking up the difficult radiation issue,
clinical psychologists consulted on the atmosphere andfocusing on the needs of residents. Clinical psychologists
also considered the diversity of risk perception among theparticipants. It was shown in the feedback sheets that thesatisfaction of participants was high (data not shown).
Case study 2: Kawauchi village case
Kawauchi Village was the first evacuated municipality
which allowed residents to return to their homes. It is
within Futaba County, Fukushima Prefecture, the region
most affected by the accident of the Fukushima Nuclear
Power Station (FNPS). Immediately after the FNPS
accident, all residents were required to evacuate on 16
March 2011. The evacuation order was lifted for the eastpart in October, 2014 and the entire area on 14 June, 2016.
It has been shown that a marked bipolarization of the risk
perception among the residents in Kawauchi village about
the health effects of radiation and among the residents. This
could have a major impact on social well-being after theaccident at FNPS [41]. Bipolarization of the risk perception

J. Natl. Inst. Public Health, 67 (1) : 2018

Lessons learned from radiation risk communication activities regarding the Fukushima nuclear accident
is still observable between the returned residents and thestill evacuated residents partially due to the discontinuanceof the temporary emergency housing after March 2017[42]. Kawauchi Village is a beautiful mountain village witha wealth of nature, but it is without a public water supply
service like neighboring Katsurao village. Previously,
their daily lives were blessed with nature, and they are
now trying to get back their own rich natural life style byimplementing techniques to ensure radiation safety for theirproducts. However, it has become difficult to restore thetraditional charcoal industry due to the radioactive waste
issue. Since their traditional lifestyle is important, current
radiation risk reduction behaviors should also be considered[43-45].
Food monitoring stations in Kawauchi village have theunique characteristic of involving local residents in theoperation of each food monitoring station. Kawauchi village
has 8 districts. After the nuclear disaster, each district had
a food radiation monitoring station except the 8th district
which was closest to the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power
station. Since April 2014, these food radiation monitoring
stations have been consolidated into 4 stations. Participating
residents are paid and they study radiation extensively
through a variety of opportunities; they are well-motivated
to contribute to their village recovery. These food radiation
monitoring stations are operated by a commerce andindustry association that is consigned by the Kawauchi
village office to promote cooperation between the residents
and village office.

IV．Guidelines on risk communication emphasizing stakeholder involvement
The public considers nuclear accidents as severe
events. If the public health community is not prepared, it
is difficult to deal with these situations. For this nuclear
event, the public health community was not preparedwell for such a huge nuclear disaster. In order to improve
public health preparedness, the Communications Workshop
was organized to start planning effective communications
together to explore how related organizations would work
together in the event of a nuclear accident and to raiseawareness of the pitfalls and best practices from Fukushima
through the assessment of planned procedures. The
experience of drill on a nuclear disaster was published as
the report of the NRPB [46]. According to their exercise, it
was realized that without adequate stakeholders consensus
could not be formed among the experts. Then stakeholder
involvement was studied experimentally. They foundthat the discussions on waste management regarding theaffected farm industry, especially issue of the disposal ofcontaminated dairy milk, was similar with the experiencesof the Fukushima nuclear accident [47-50].
Stakeholder involvement for post-nuclear disasteris a key to resolving this problem. For the local publichealth activities dealing with difficult conflict issues, thecollaborative problem-solving model shown by US EPA[51] is adaptable and effective since this model has beendeveloped by gathering many real case studies and its
philosophy of collaboration is easy to observe empathy bystakeholders with different positions.

V．Risk communication and social media
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) issued
Risk Communication Guidelines indicating 4 guiding
principles; Openness, Transparency, Independence andResponsiveness/timeliness [52]. From this point, it was
shown that the importance of "attitude" when releasinga message, not just "how to technologically put out amessage". Also, this has shown the importance of grasping
the mutual relationship within dialogue so that thestructure of distrust among the audience is found. In the
EFSA guidelines, various tools and channels are picked up,
and it explains in what situations it is suitable and what kindof scene it is not suitable for. The unique characteristicsof the list it contains, not only websites but also, social
networking, twitter and blogging. Although utilizing social
media has challenges for administrative organizations, “A
structured plan for social media improved the visibility of
EFSAʼs content”.
The social media issues in risk communication were also
indicated and discussed at the 32nd meeting of RASSC,
IAEA as review of the IAEA safety standards based on
experience following the fukushima accident saying
Radiation Safety Standards Committee (RASSC) agreed
that the best means of communicating with the public in
the aftermath of an emergency is to be already established
as a credible source on social media. There is a need todevelop guidance for Member States on how to establish apresence on social media and how to develop and maintaincredibility”.
Fu r t h e r m o r e , u t i l i z a t i o n o f n a t u r a l l a n g u a g e
processing technology would be bigger challenge of risk
communication by social listening from now on. What is theeasy way to know what people want to know? To examine
the discourse on the net, reputation analysis tools using
natural language processing are being developed. The
significance and advantages of a reputation analysis tool isthat it is inexpensive compared to a standard social survey,
and quick. Newly developed techniques using natural
language processing are making it possible to improve and

J. Natl. Inst. Public Health, 67 (1) : 201897

Ichiro Yamaguchi, Tsutomu Shimura, Hiroshi Terada, Erik R. Svendsen, Naoki Kunugita
support people's thinking [53]. These techniques would be
useful to obtain frank opinions from the public and thesetools would be good regarding community engagement andresponsiveness.
Other usages of reputation analysis tool are rumor
survey. A case example that "You can discover foodpoisoning that has not been reported to the administrationfrom the word-of-mouth" has been published [54].

VI．Role of a risk communicator
The role of the risk communicator is to build bridges
between the risk manager, risk assessors and otherinterested scientists, and other key stakeholders, suchas residents and consumers. Of utmost importance is thetranslation of risk assessment information into objective,
understandable information which can be provided to the
public while considering their health literacy. In addition, therisk communicator needs to collect feedback and assess theopinions regarding changes in values and priorities of the
public, and feed this back to risk managers and assessors(Fig.2). It was confirmed that gaming is an effective way forthe development of the communication tool intended for the
public to become familiar with technical terms [55].

VII．Challenges of communication with affected residents in terms of thyroid cancer screening tests
The psychosocial impact of thyroid cancer on young
people who were exposed to I-131 following the Dai-ichi
power plant explosion is important. Clearly, the experiencein Belarus following the Chernobyl accident underscores
the significance of psychosocial studies. One companion
study might be to survey the parent's concerns about theirchildren having thyroid cancer and how that has affected
the family situation. If they have more than one childare they worried about their other children developing
thyroid cancer? It may be that siblings who are not affected
represent a psychologically high-risk group among theirfriends. Surveying them may be important as well. The
results of these studies would be helpful in designingappropriate psychosocial interventions to help the affectedchild, unaffected siblings, and the parents cope with theirsituation. Following a cohort of these individuals over an
extended period would be informative about the longterm consequences on their psychological and social
development. A comparison set of studies would be doing
the same surveys in children and their families who havenormal ultrasonography and those who have nodules orcysts. Depending on the findings, these groups may behelped by psycho-educational interventions.
One other potential population to survey would be
the children and parents, who lived in Futaba County at
the time of the power plant meltdown and explosions.
These towns were the exceptional ones that administeredpotassium iodide to their inhabitants. It would be useful tounderstand whether taking the potassium iodide not only
protected them from the thyroid cancer risk but whether it
also protected them from the adverse psychological effectsof radiation exposure. If this could be demonstrated, itwould be another strong reason for every town near nuclear
power stations to have a protocol in place to administer KI
following a nuclear accident.

Remained challenge to respond to difficult situations→Need to respond to follow‐up of the NRA policy package established on Oct. 2015

Challenge to ensure the effectiveness of risk communication
Our model seminar based on past past academic achievements regardingwith risk communication for nursery school teachers was effective

Issues areremaining…
Situation dependency
should be consideredsuch as areas to which
evacuation orders areready to be lifted andvoluntary• Continuous humandevelopment• Provide practicalmodels for social
workers regarding
risk communication

It is inevitable to deal withcomplicated emotions anddifficulties of risk communication

Promote the local activities regarding thefeeling s local residents
 Share good practices respecting thediversity on risk perception
 Work with local communicators to solve
problems
 Ease the burden to deal with difficult
issuesBeyond the knowledge providing

Public Health sector
・ Help to clear one‘s
thoughts
・Provide a community
health activity model
adaptable for eachsituation

To develop more functional
method by cooperating social
sciences
Recognition of uncertainty andpsychological inclination topreventive measures based on
distrust of the system
There is a limit only by explainingConrm that values that arebehind the thoughts, ethicalpositions that are the basis of
judgment can be shared

Residents (Parents)
・Reduce the overloadof decision‐makings
・Strengthen therelationship between
local government andresidents

Social context
Systematic approach toconsolidate local community
respecting the differencesamong residents

Fig.2 Challenge to ensure the effectiveness of risk communication

98

J. Natl. Inst. Public Health, 67 (1) : 2018

Lessons learned from radiation risk communication activities regarding the Fukushima nuclear accident

VIII．Long-term collaborative work withpublic employees who engaged in recovery work in Fukushima by caring
for their stress
Maeda mentioned that mental health issues areprioritized among relevant stakeholders including public
employees: “In addition to other stressors, such as
exposure to residentsʼ anger, role conflicts among theemployees were one of the etiological factors that causedsuch a high prevalence rate of depression among our study
participants”[56]. To reduce the stress among stakeholders,environmental justice collaborative problem-solving modelis promising tool supported by social scientists.

IX．Conclusions
Successful good practices are those helpful to the
local community, supported by the local community, andare observable in local communities. They use strategic
approaches with a team organized by many experts in local
areas, including local risk communicators. Established risk
communication guidelines are helpful for their approachespecially in the ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI)of science and technology.

Acknowledgements
We are thankful for the cooperation of the local residents
and many leaders in the local governments including Datecity and Kawauchi village who facilitated these public healthactions. Dr. Craig VayDyke provided his thoughtful idea on
surveys regarding psychological issues in terms of thyroid
screening test. This study was supported by the Japanese
Ministry of Environment and Ministry of Health, Welfareand Labour.

Conflict of Interests
The authors declare that there is no conflict of interests
regarding the publication of this article.

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101

Ichiro Yamaguchi, Tsutomu Shimura, Hiroshi Terada, Erik R. Svendsen, Naoki Kunugita

福島第一原子力発電所事故後の放射線リスクコミュニケーション活動の教訓
山口一郎 1), 志村勉 1), 寺田宙 1), エリック・スベンソン 2), 欅田尚樹 1)1)

国立保健医療科学院生活環境研究部

2)

サウスカロライナ医科大学公衆衛生科学部環境保健分野

抄録
導入：東電福島第一原子力発電所事故からの回復期において，精神保健対策や二次的な健康影響への対応が容易ではない課題となっている．バランスの取れた公衆衛生施策を展開するには，リスク・コ
ミュニケーションに関する健全な取り組みが求められる．
方法：放射線リスクコミュニケーションに関するガイドラインや公衆衛生活動に関してPubMedを用いた文献レビューを行い，リスクコミュニケーション課題に関する今日の捉え方を調べた．
結果：それぞれのガイドラインの内容や「放射線」，「コミュニケーション」をMeSHの主要トピック
スとして選択し，「福島」で検索し得られた文献からは福島での原発事故でのリスク・コミュニケー
ションの適用可能性やその重要性について一致した認識があった．日本の各省庁で発行しているリス
ク・コミュニケーションに関するガイドラインは，国際機関が発行しているガイドラインとも考え方が一致していた．
考察：これらのガイドラインで提示されていたリスク・コミュニケーションの基本的な考え方は，地
域住民と地域社会機能を高める地域保健の良好活動事例でもその展開を支える役立つものとなっており，原発事故によりもたらされた二次的な健康被害の低減に役立っている可能性がある．しかしながら，倫理的，法的，社会的議論を検討する活動（ELSI）は，放射線リスクコミュニケーションに関する地域保健活動において新しく認識されてきた概念であり，まだ，この観点で社会学と地域保健活動の連携について書かれた論文が限られていることから，社会科学とより連携を深めることが挑戦的な課題となっていた．ELSIは，地域保健活動での放射線リスクコミュニケーションにおいて避けては通れない概念であり，このような地域での容易ではない課題に対して，関係者で連携した課題解決戦略が強化される必要がある．このように社会科学も活用した関係者で連携した課題解決戦略は，研究上も挑戦的な課題となっていると考えられる．
結論：リスクコミュニケーションのよい取り組みは，地域社会にとって役立つものであり，その展開
が地域社会からも支持されていた．地域社会において地域のコミュニケータを含む複数の専門職からなるチームとして組織された戦略的な取り組みが観察された．確立されたリスクコミュニケーションのガイドラインは，特に科学技術でのELSIの観点から特に役立つものである．
キーワード：原子力災害，リスク・コミュニケーション，公衆衛生，放射線102

J. Natl. Inst. Public Health, 67 (1) : 2018