Lessons Learned from the Mental Health Consequences of the Chernobyl and Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Accidents.

I read with great interest the manuscript entitled “Mental health and neuropsychiatric aftermath 35 years after the Chernobyl catastrophe: current state and future perspectives” written by Drs. Loganovsky and Marazziti (2021). The authors remind us of a very crucial message—when nuclear power plant (NPP) accidents happen, the most relevant long-term health outcome among the affected people is its psychosocial impact and not radiation-related cancers (Rahu et al., 2006). The authors also send us the importance of learning from the past and applying lessons in future clinical, research, and educational territories.

Nuclear disasters do not happen very often. The interval between the two worst NPP accidents classified as Level 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale—Chernobyl and Fukushima—was 25 years. This interval is long enough for people to forget the lessons learned from the past. On a personal note, I was a high school student in Japan when the Chernobyl disaster took place in 1986. I still remember the impact of a flash bulletin of the breaking news. Chernobyl was so far from Japan, but I was concerned about how the accident will affect the region as well as the surrounding area. I had read several books written by the survivors of the 1945 Hiroshima/ Nagasaki atomic bomb attacks. Those books had given me horrific images of nuclear bombings, but I did not have the knowledge to distinguish the differences between nuclear bombings and NPP accidents.

Fast forward to 11 March 2011— the Great East Japan Earthquake took place in northeastern Japan. Gigantic tsunami waves were triggered by the 9.0 magnitude earthquake. Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant was severely damaged and led to plant explosions, reactor meltdown, the release of radioactive materials, as well as mandatory evacuation for the surrounding residents. By then, I knew that nuclear bombings were different from NPP accidents. I also was well aware that chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear events (combined with high-yield explosives: CBRNE) lead to mass social disruption and require complex measures compared with “conventional” disaster events (e.g., earthquakes, tsunamis, floods) owing to its imperceptible nature (Ursano, 2002).

By a twist of fate, I was called in to support the workers of the Fukushima Daiichi (and the nearby Daini) NPPs (Shigemura et al., 2012a) and strongly realized the psychosocial impact on the affected people. This impact was not only limited to not only post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and mood disorders, and increased substance use, but also adverse health perceptions (e.g., fear towards future health, medically unexplained physical symptoms: MUPS) as well as negative social behaviors such as stigmatization and discrimination (Shigemura et al., 2021; Terayama et al., 2021; Shigemura et al., 2012b). Still, when hundred-thousands of residents were forced to evacuate from the surrounding area of the NPP, I was stunned to know they not only suffered the loss of their homes— they had to readjust to their new environment, economic losses, and fragmentation of their families, communities, and societies (Hasegawa et al., 2015). Their critical concerns were not only about radiation exposure—the destruction of their home environment and ambiguity to their future.

The researchers of the Fukushima disaster have learned a lot from the findings from the Chernobyl studies. The most important finding is that mental health consequences (and support) of the affected populations will continue for decades to come (Loganovsky et al., 2008). Another finding is that the two vulnerable populations in post-nuclear disaster situations are NPP clean-up/frontline workers and mothers of young children (Bromet et al., 2011). The researchers of the Fukushima disaster, on the other hand, were able to capture mental health data from the first year of the disaster, whereas in Chernobyl this was infeasible because the former Soviet Union did not release any data in this time frame. Chernobyl researchers can also learn from the currently available Fukushima studies. To my knowledge, the impact of stigma and discrimination has yet to be quantitatively assessed in Chernobyl survivors. Also, many Fukushima studies focused on other vulnerable populations, such as the physically/mentally disabled, healthcare workers, and caregivers (Shigemura et al., 2021; Terayama et al., 2021). It would be very interesting to know the mental health consequences of these populations in the Chernobyl accident.

Drs. Loganovsky and Marazziti’s review reports the intriguing neuropsychiatric effect among the Chernobyl clean-up workers. These data are very important in understanding the human health effect of radiation exposure. While the radiation exposure doses of the Chernobyl workers were substantially higher than that of the Fukushima workers, it will be ideal to see the neuropsychiatric health effect of the highly exposed NPP workers in the years to come. We might have to carefully interpret these findings from the Chernobyl studies. Methodologically, it is quite challenging to quantify accelerated aging, and one cannot easily distinguish between “normal” and “accelerated” aging. We also need to take a wide range of confounding factors into account, including, but not limited to, increased alcohol and other substance use, socioeconomic status changes, and comorbid health conditions such as cardiovascular and metabolic diseases (Laidra et al., 2015; Bazyka et al., 2018).

No one wants to experience another NPP (or any) disaster—the impact of the NPP accidents were so devastating and complex, and our tragic history should not repeat itself. Having said that, we still need to prepare and educate the frontline workers, healthcare workers, government leaders, and the public before it happens. The scientific community needs to carry on the lessons of these two disasters, and provide a guiding light in future events. These lessons will apply to other future CBRNE events as well as the current COVID-19 crisis (Shigemura et al., 2020).