OBJECTIVES Helicobacter pylori is a gram-negative, spiral-shaped, urease-producing bacterium with multiple unipolar flagella. Humans are a major reservoir for H. pylori; however, there are no data on the prevalence of H. pylori among dyspeptic patients who have experienced natural disasters. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine the prevalence of H. pylori in dyspeptic patients who su...

BACKGROUND On March 11, 2011, the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami that followed caused severe damage along Japans northeastern coastline and to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. To date, there are few reports specifically examining psychological distress in rescue workers in Japan. Moreover, it is unclear to what extent concern over radiation exposure has caused psychological d...

The catastrophic earthquake, 7.3 on the Richter scale, occurred on September 21, 1999. The 921 Earthquake was a terrifying disaster that caused numerous casualties in Central Taiwan. It is the severest earthquake in a recent hundred years. The land morphology and topography changed greatly with such features as land upheaval, river blockades and lakes dammed by debris in many locations. Severe ...

The 2013 Partial Amendment of the Disaster Countermeasures Basic Law mandated that a roster of vulnerable persons during disasters be created, and further development of evacuation support is expected. In this study, the number of vulnerable people living in target analytical areas are identified in terms of neighborhood units by using the National Health Insurance Database to create a realisti...

The World Bank has reported Taiwan as the most vulnerable country in terms of the percentage of exposed areas and multiplicity disaster. During the past decade, a number of natural disasters have occurred in Taiwan, especially two critical ones, i.e. Chi-Chi earthquake and Typhoon Morakot. In the first event, the earthquake was with a magnitude of 7.3 on the Richter scale and caused seriously d...

Due to the location and environment of Taiwan, the frequency of nature disaster is high and the caused damages to the human life, properties and transportation facilities are serious. Considering the disaster prevention of bridge structures caused by earthquake, scour, debris flow, corrosion and senescence, literatures involving the developed bridge management information systems and the bridge...

In the aftermath of a disaster, the risk of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is high. We sought to examine whether the predisaster level of community social cohesion was associated with a lower risk of PTSD after the earthquake and tsunami in Tohoku, Japan, on March 11, 2011. The baseline for our natural experiment was established in a survey of older community-dwelling adults who lived 80 ...

BACKGROUND Disaster Medicine training is not included in medical education curriculum in China, even though the country has suffered various disasters annually. We intended to assess the need for continual education regarding disaster management for health professionals in China. METHODS A survey was conducted among 324 health professionals who participated in the response to the Wenchuan ear...

Aim Transporting critically ill patients outside of disaster-affected areas for treatment is an important activity of Japan Disaster Medical Assistance Teams (DMATs). We investigated whether this activity is possible after possible catastrophic damage from a Nankai Trough earthquake. Methods Japan was divided into three areas based on the level of predicted damage (definitely, possibly, and n...