Radioprotection 2025, 60( 4), 354 – 359 © M. Machida et al., Published by EDP Sciences 2025 https:// doi. org / 10.1051 / radiopro / 2025007
Available online at: www. radioprotection. org
ARTICLE
Participatory‘ Creative Health’ in Fukushima schools: implications of‘ ACT’ theatre component for children’ s responses
M. Machida 1,*, A. Goto 1, 2, A. Lloyd Williams 3, S. Okabe 4, C. Koriyama 5, M. Murakami 6, Y. Yumiya 7 and K. E. Nollet 8 1 Center for Integrated Sciences and Humanities, Fukushima Medical University, Fukushima, Japan. 2 Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, USA. 3 Department of Sociology, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK. 4 Department of Food and Nutrition, Koriyama Women’ s University, Fukushima, Japan. 5 Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, Kagoshima University Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences,
Kagoshima, Japan. 6 Division of Scientific Information and Public Policy, Center for Infectious Disease Education and Research, The University of Osaka, Osaka, Japan.. 7 Department of Public Health and Health Policy, Graduate School of Biomedical and Health Sciences, Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Japan. 8 Department of Blood Transfusion and Transplantation Immunology, Fukushima Medical University, Fukushima, Japan.
Received: 9 October 2024 / Accepted: 4 February 2025
Abstract – Our group has developed a“ Creative Health” project as a participatory educational approach after Japan’ s 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster in Fukushima. The project engages elementary school children in three workshops:“ ACT” was first, developed by a specialist in participatory theater, to empower children to express what they think about their community.“ BODY” and“ FOOD” came next, developed, respectively, by an academic pathologist specializing in blood transfusion and a university-based nurse-dietitian. Each workshop provides creative activities( e. g., drama and performance in ACT, storyboard presentation in BODY, and drawing in FOOD) for children to express their opinions. To assess the impact of Creative Health, attendees were asked about their feelings on health, food, and community. We compared responses between two groups: those involved in all three workshops( Group I) and those attending just BODY and FOOD( Group II). Group II showed increases in viewing their own health and the food in their community more positively. Similar increases were observed in Group I regarding views about their own health, the food in their community, and community overall. Text-mining analysis of children’ s free written opinions showed that“ taking care of my health” and“ communication” appeared only in Group I. ACT had positive impacts on facilitating children to communicate with their peers, become responsible for their own health, and have positive perspectives about themselves and their community. Keywords: Creative Health / education / Fukushima / participatory theatre approach / BODY / FOOD / ACT
1 Introduction
Following the Great East Japan Earthquake and Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, we observed that many adults in Fukushima remained concerned about children’ s health and wellbeing( Ishii K, 2022). While many studies among children conducted after the 2011 disaster focused on their physical and mental health, the Sendai Framework of Disaster Risk Reduction 2015 – 2030 stated that,“ Children and youth are
* Corresponding author: mune0323 @ fmu. ac. jp agents of change and should be given the space and modalities to contribute to disaster risk reduction, in accordance with legislation, national practice and educational curricula.”( UNISDR, 2015). Therefore, children’ s ability to act and contribute to their community should be recognized and promoted. Inspired by the“ Creative Health” report by the UK All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing( All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, 2017), we created a participatory school health project called“ Creative Health”( Goto A, 2022). The project began with the development and implementation of an“ ACT” workshop, based on the participatory theatre approach piloted in Fukushima Prefecture
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