Analysis of Necessary Support in the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake Disaster Area

Altogether, 1588 dietitians were dispatched from the Japan Dietetic Association (JDA) to a disaster area for the first time on a nationwide scale following the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. Various studies have been conducted based on the activity reports, but the support that the disaster area requested was not documented. The purpose of this study is to identify the support that was needed in the disaster area. Therefore, we investigated the necessary support desired by dietitians who lived in the disaster areas. Questionnaires were sent to 1911 dietitians who were members of the JDA and lived in 3 affected prefectures in August 2012. In total, 435 dietitians (22.8%) completed the questionnaire. Among the questions on the questionnaire, we analyzed answers to the open-ended question: “Please write freely about the support that you wanted at the time of the disaster” (n = 332). Using qualitative descriptive analysis, we extracted data from the answers and categorized and labeled them into similar groups. These groups were divided into four categories: (1) “goods,” (2) “establishing a system in advance of a large-scale disaster,” (3) “information,” and (4) “human resources.” To provide “goods,” “information,” and “human resources” to the disaster area smoothly, it is important to plan a “system” in advance of large-scale disasters.