Thesis advisor: Ann W. Burgess / Background: On March 11, 2011, a 9.0-magnitude earthquake hit the islands of Japan. Subsequent tsunami waves occurred as high as 40 meters above sea level and severely destroyed the nuclear plant in Fukushima. While it is known that both natural and manmade disasters impose physical and psychological distress on affected people, the impact on people's health of indirect exposure to a traumatic event has remained to be determined. This study investigates somatic and psychological stress reactions among residents in the United States and Japan to the Great East Japan Earthquake Disaster from comparative perspectives. Study design: A secondary analysis of data obtained from the mother study which examined media use and health impact among those living in the United States and Japan at the time of the disaster. Results: Two groups of participants, Japanese Americans (n=297) and Japanese (n=1142), were analyzed. Japanese Americans reported higher psychological and somatic symptoms than their counterpart in Japan. Among Japanese Americans, income, the severity of somatic symptoms, and help seeking behavior predicted 38.2% of the variance in psychological symptoms. Among Japanese, age, income, help seeking behavior, and severity of somatic symptoms predicted 31.9% of the variance in psychological symptoms related to the 311 disaster. Conclusions: It is evident that indirect exposure to a traumatic event occurring in a distant place has significant adverse effects on people's physical and mental health. Therefore, clinical nurses and health care providers, especially in primary care settings, need to acknowledge the importance of screening for psychological distress among ethnic groups when a natural or man-made disaster occurs in their country of origin. Nurses can promote mental health by responding to stress related responses associated with disasters for those both directly and indirectly impacted. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2015. / Submitted to: Boston College. Connell School of Nursing. / Discipline: Nursing.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the grassroots environmental movement brought national attention to the issues related to inequities in environmental quality. Previous research addressing these environmental inequities has progressively increased and advanced methodologically. However, the arguments and focus have been primarily limited to examining the socio-demographics in an ongoing debate of race and class. This thesis extends past the methodological stalemate focusing on the application of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) using survey data in an environmental justice case study of a community in south Florida. This approach examines the social, health and environmental impacts of a Superfund site on a low income, minority community. Using geo-coded survey (N=223) and environmental data (ash deposition patterns), this thesis employs path analysis to test the hypothesis that exposure matters. The exposure matters hypothesis suggests exposure (perceived, self-reported and actual) is a significant predictor of physical and psychological health. Results discuss significant findings, and then compare them with previous disaster and trauma-related research and present directions for future research.