Public Attitudes toward the Final Disposal of Radioactively Contaminated Soil Resulting from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station Accident.

Radioactively contaminated soil from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station accident in 2011 is required by law to be finally disposed of outside Fukushima Prefecture by 2045. To gain public acceptance of this policy, it is essential to promote understanding and nationwide discussion. We conducted a web-based survey of 2000 people in Japan to examine public attitudes toward final disposal of the contaminated soil outside Fukushima Prefecture. Results show that policy approval was negatively correlated with perceived risk of a final disposal site, sense of inequity associated with building a final disposal site near residential areas, and values that are absolutely non-negotiable or protected from trade-offs with other values (protected values). Policy approval was positively correlated with high levels of interest in the Fukushima accident and subjective knowledge of decontamination and the policy. Respondents' comments and opinions about the policy indicated that respondents who approved of the policy accepted burden sharing, while those who disapproved were unconvinced by the rationale behind disposal outside Fukushima Prefecture and were dissatisfied by the lack of information disclosure and transparency. While the government's efforts to disseminate information about the current status and future of Fukushima have been effective to a certain extent, they are insufficient to achieve widespread public understanding of the policy. Our results indicate that attention needs to be paid to procedural fairness and explanations of risks.

A comparison of perceived effectiveness of preventive behaviors against COVID-19 between the public and medical experts: Not so different in means, but in distributions.

This brief report documents the results of a survey that measured the public's and doctors' perceived effectiveness of preventive behaviors against COVID-19, in Japan. Medical doctors (n = 117) and the general public (n = 1086) participated in our online survey. The results of the analysis of mean scores indicate that there were only slight differences in perceived effectiveness between the two groups, while the differences in distributions were remarkable. The results of Silverman's test suggest the unimodality of doctors' responses and multimodality of the public's responses. Implications of the findings to combat the risk of infection are discussed.

Why Do Japanese People Use Masks Against COVID-19, Even Though Masks Are Unlikely to Offer Protection From Infection?

Wearing masks against 2019 coronavirus (COVID-19) is beneficial in suppressing pandemic spread, not through preventing the wearer from being infected but by preventing the wearer from infecting others. Despite not providing much protection, the custom of wearing masks has prevailed in East Asia from the early stages of the pandemic, especially in Japan, to such an extent that it caused a shortfall in supply. Why do many Japanese people wear masks during the COVID-19 pandemic, even though masks are unlikely to prevent them from getting infected? We examined six possible psychological reasons for wearing masks: three involved expectations about the risk of infection and three involved other driving psychological forces. The results of our nationwide survey revealed that people conformed to societal norms in wearing masks and felt relief from anxiety when wearing masks. However, risk reduction expectations did not affect mask usage. The social psychological motivations successfully explained much about mask usage. Our findings suggest that policymakers responsible for public health should consider social motivations when implementing public strategies to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.