Japan's Great Hanshin Earthquake of 1995 destroyed the homes, livelihoods, and communities of many elderly people. Some of the most vulnerable survivors spent up to five years in temporary shelters before settling into publicly subsidized apartments or dispersing into the general population. Public scrutiny of the post-earthquake recovery drew attention to the challenges of community generation and the loneliness, isolation, and death experienced by elderly earthquake victims. Bringing together quantitative and qualitative analysis of media discourse, public policy, and ethnographic fieldwork, this book examines the earthquake's long-term effects of temporary shelters and public reconstruction housing for elderly residents. The first study to utilize NVivo qualitative research software in a Japanese research context, this is an original contribution to natural disaster literature, as well as health and welfare policy in societies that, like Japan, are undergoing rapid urbanization and population aging.

About Editors and Authors

OTANI Junko, DDS, MPH, MS, PhD, is Professor in the Graduate School of Human Sciences at Osaka University. She obtained her DDS from Osaka University, her MPH in International Health and MS in Population Science from Harvard University, and completed her PhD in Social Policy and Administration at the London School of Economics. She previously worked for the World Bank as Health Specialist and for the World Health Organization as Medical Officer, based mainly in China, before taking up her current position. She specializes in international health and population, social development studies, area studies and research methodology.

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