Long-Term Trend in the Association Between Disaster Damage and Happiness Before and After the Great East Japan Earthquake

Objectives: Disasters change survivors’ living circumstances, which can affect their happiness. We examined the trends in the association between disaster damage and happiness before and after a disaster. Methods: We analyzed 4,044 participants aged ≥65 years who had experienced the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011. The baseline survey was conducted 7 months before the disaster. Follow-up surveys have been conducted every 3 years. Using a mixed model for repeated measures, we compared the prevalence ratios (PRs) for unhappiness according to the survivors’ level of housing damage, which is a proxy for disaster damage. Results: The unhappiness in participants who suffered severe damage appeared to be higher than in those with no damage in 2010 (multivariate-adjusted PR: 1.18, 95% confidence interval: 0.93–1.48). A higher PR was observed after the earthquake in 2013 (1.34, 0.79–2.28), while there was no difference in 2016 (1.02, 0.53–1.97) and 2019 (1.03, 0.50–2.12). Conclusion: The prevalence of unhappiness in survivors with severe housing damage was higher before the disaster. However, the unhappiness gap between people with and without housing damage converged during the follow-up.