Abstract
A total of 1237 Nagasaki A-bomb survivors were interviewed in 1997 and were asked to talk freely about atomic bombing, health concerns, relatives' death, and mental health Their talk was recorded on tape if allowed. The 30-item version of General Health Questionnaire was also administered to assess their mental health conditions. In the present study, we analyzed the talks of 928 Nagasaki A-bomb survivors who completely responded to all items.We used Wordminer for the analysis: we first decomposed texts into words; then evaluated their frequency in the texts; and finally used them for correspondence analysis.We analyzed the significance of the words by sex and age at the time of the bombing. Females bombed under 9 years of age showed the features of child: mother, memory, brother and primary school. Males bombed in their teens showed the features of student: student mobilization and classmate. Females bombed at 20 years of age or over showed the features of woman: husband, children, soldier, marriage and death in action. Males bombed over 20 years of age showed the features of worker: shipyard, factory, soldier and call-up.With respect to the exposure distance from the hypocenter, those exposed at proximal distance showed the features of physical conditions: burns, skin and purpur. Geographical names frequently appeared in those exposed from 2km to 2.9km: Suwa, Tateyama and Mt. Kompira.
