The early 1920s was an epoch making era for research on disasters, especially in the behavioural/ social science research areas. Since the first behavioural/social scientific research on disasters was tailored by Prince in 1920, research on disasters has gained popularity and importance over time with a substantial amount of literature exploring the interaction between human society and disasters. By tracing how the term “disaster” has evolved and shifted over time, the authours identify key trends in behavioural/scientific approach to disasters. The authours present a selective overview of research on disasters to synthesize the insights of the past research, and move in the direction of presenting a clear answer for the old yet new question of what disaster is and what it means. Possible directions for future research were also discussed.

View full abstract

Japan introduced the framework of risk analysis into its food safety administration in 2003 in response to BSE crisis. The objective of this paper is to review how the concept of risk communication was institutionalized in Japan as compared with that of the international organization and other jurisdictions. The detailed historical analysis revealed three distinguished features of risk communication in Japanese food safety system. First, Japan has explicitly introduced the “function of coordination” between risk management body and risk assessment body to ensure comprehensive administration of risk communication. Second, such function was explicitly designated to the Food Safety Commission, the risk assessment body, until the recent establishment of the Consumer Affairs Agency. Third, despite the existence of risk communication coordinating body, no integrated strategic plan specific to risk communication is developed.

View full abstract

The 10th Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, COP10, was held in Nagoya, Japan, in October, 2010. At the conference, the three main theme were discussed:
1.Conservation of biological diversity
2.Fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from genetic resources (Access and Benefit Sharing)
3.Biosafety of genetic modified organisms.
As the results of the COP10, the following three agreements were adopted in correspondence to each of the three themes mentioned above:
1. The Aichi Target
2. The Nagoya Protocol
3. The Nagoya-Kuala Lumpur Supplementary Protocol
Especially, the Aichi Target provides the direct goals until 2020 for conservation of biological diversity, which has important meaning for ecologists. In Japan, we have enacted the National Strategy for the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Biological Diversity 2012-2020, in order to achieve the Aichi Target. On the other hand, although ABS has been the greatest concern in CBD-COP, preparing of legal systems corresponding to the Nagoya Protocol have been delayed not only in Japan but also in the world. Further promotion and education of the significance of biological diversity should be the main subject for every country.

View full abstract

This paper studied the information influence on consumer behaviors by choice-based conjoint analysis, concerning preservative-free wiener sausage. We separated respondents into two groups and conducted the choice experiment in two ways; (1) respondents in one group are provided the information only about risk assessment and management of food additives; (2) respondents in the other one are provided the information not only risk assessment and management but also benefits of preservatives, keeping good quality and reducing food-poisoning risk. Then we estimated the econometric models and analyzed respondents’ evaluation and changes of their evaluation to the preservative-free attribute before and after providing the information. This result shows that the value of preservative-free attribute declined, from 58.9 JPY/100g to 46.8 JPY/100g (minus 20.5%), after providing information. This fact indicated that consumers’ behavior to food risk may be influenced to some extent when combining with these types of information.

View full abstract

A web-based survey was conducted with Japanese consumers (N=4,363) from Oct.-Nov. 2011 to investigate perceptions about health risks from beef that was potentially affected by contamination from radioactivity due to the nuclear power plant accident or the E.coli O111 outbreak in 2011. Enteroheamorrhaghic E. coli was regarded as the highest risk whereas radioactivity ranked 6th rank out of seven beef-related hazards. While the perceived risk of radioactivity in beef was comparatively low, respondents revealed lower willingness to pay for the food produced in the affected area. For example, even for beef without radioactivity detected, 40.3% of consumers had a lower willingness to pay. When radioactivity was detected in beef, but below acceptable limits, 70.1% of consumers had a lower willingness to pay. Knowledge level on radioactivity in beef had limited impact on price evaluation by consumers, but attitudes regarding risk management significantly affected the price evaluation of food from the affected area.

View full abstract