Objective: It is important for autonomies to cooperate with related organizations from non-emergency periods to offer appropriate nutrition assistance to disaster refugees. We investigated how many autonomies made plans and agreements on nutrition assistance during disasters, and clarified what factors had influences on that.
Methods: We conducted a nationwide questionnaire survey in all autonomies in Japan 2.5 years after the Great East Japan Earthquake.
Results: The response rate was 71.1% (n＝1,272). The percentage of the autonomies that made agreements to get manpower support from the Self-Defense Forces during disasters was 30.6%, however, only one autonomy prepared the system which is suitable for its geographic characteristic. Autonomies with public health centers (prefectures, cities with public health centers, Tokyo special wards) were more likely to make plans or agreements to receive manpower support from other autonomies (p＝0.003), the Japan Dietetic Association (p＜0.001), prefectural dietetic associations (p＜0.001) and so on. Out of the autonomies that experienced disasters before, those having gotten outside manpower support before were more likely to make plans or agreements to get support from the Japan Dietetic Association (p＝0.015). Regarding foods for vulnerable people, 16.5% of the autonomies had aid agreements, and the percentage of having agreements in towns with administrative dietitians was significantly higher (p＝0.003).
Conclusion: Few autonomies made agreements on nutrition manpower support, and even among them, the number of the autonomies having detailed support system was more limited.
