Influence of post-disaster evacuation on incidence of hyperuricemia in residents of Fukushima Prefecture: the Fukushima Health Management Survey

AIM: After the Great East Japan Earthquake, over 160,000 residents in Fukushima Prefecture were forced to evacuate the area around the Fukushima Daiichi power plant following nuclear accident there. Health problems in these evacuees have since become a major issue. We have examined the association between evacuation and incidence of hyperuricemia among residents in Fukushima. METHODS: We conducted a cohort study of residents aged 40–90 years without hyperuricemia at the time of the Fukushima disaster. Among 8173 residents who met the inclusion criteria before the disaster, 4789 residents (men: 1971, women: 2818; follow-up duration: 1.38 years; and follow-up rate: 58.6%) remained available for follow-up examinations at the end of March 2013. The main endpoint was incidence of hyperuricemia, defined by the Japanese committee guidelines, using local health data from before and after the disaster. We divided participants by evacuation status and compared outcomes between groups. Using a logistic regression model, we estimated the odds ratio for incidence of hyperuricemia, adjusting for potential confounders, age, gender, waist circumference, physical activity, and alcohol consumption. RESULTS: Incidence of hyperuricemia was higher in evacuees (men 10.1%; women 1.1%) than in non-evacuees (men 7.4%, women 1.0%). Evacuees had higher body mass index, waist circumference, triglycerides, LDL-cholesterol, fasting plasma glucose, HbA1c, and lower HDL-cholesterol after the disaster than non-evacuees. We found that evacuation was associated with incidence of hyperuricemia (adjusted odds ratio: 1.38; 95% confidence interval: 1.03–1.86). CONCLUSION: This is the first study to demonstrate an association between evacuation after a disaster and increased incidence of hyperuricemia.