Relationship between changes in functional capacity and social activities among older people who have experienced a disaster

Individual evacuation behavior plan of vulnerable people

Abstract

Floods are one of the most frequent disasters in Japan. Early evacuation of vulnerable older people during disasters is an important challenge. The purpose of this study is to describe relationship between changes in functional capacity and social activities among older people who have experienced a disaster. A large number of types of social activities before the disaster was associated with maintaining the functional capacity after the disaster. These findings suggest that social activities and functional capacity are important components for indi-vidual evacuation behavior plan of vulnerable people.