Mental health status among younger generation around Chernobyl.
BACKGROUND
In order to improve our understanding of how to approach the younger generation around Chernobyl, we screened mental health status among young adults born after the accident living in the Gomel region, Belarus.


METHODS
We enrolled 697 medical students who were born after the accident. Participants were asked to answer self-administered questionnaires including the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12).


RESULTS
GHQ-12 scores were 1.80 ±2.28 (mean ± SD) among all 697 subjects. When logistic regression analysis was performed with confounding factors, "economic situation" and "association of diseases and/or poor health condition with radiation exposure" were significantly associated with poor mental status.


CONCLUSIONS
Our findings suggest that anxiety about radiation exposure among highly educated medical students in the Gomel region, although they were born after the accident, affects their poor mental health status.
Graduate School of International Health Development, Nagasaki University, Nagasaki, Japan.
Tomoko
T
Masunaga
Gomel State Medical University, Gomel, The Republic of Belarus.
Alexander
A
Kozlovsky
Gomel State Medical University, Gomel, The Republic of Belarus.
Anatoly
A
Lyzikov
Department of Global Health, Medicine and Welfare, Nagasaki University Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Nagasaki, Japan.
Noboru
N
Takamura
Fukushima Medical University, Fukushima, Japan.
Shunichi
S
Yamashit
Chernobyl; Fukushima; General Health Questionnaire-12; Mental health