What factors were important for dietary improvement in emergency shelters after the Great East Japan Earthquake?

The Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011 left many evacuees with insufficient food and emergency shelter. However, there is no evidence concerning the factors affecting dietary circumstances in emergency shelters after disasters. To clarify the factors that influenced the provision of meals, we reanalyzed a data set from a dietary survey conducted in emergency shelters one month after the Great East Japan Earthquake (2011). Among the 69 shelters in "city A," 53 (79.1%) had food shortages. The possibility of cooking in the emergency shelter improved the provision of meals to evacuees. When comparing emergency shelters with and without cooking equipment, the shelters with cooking equipment provided more meals, as well as more dishes containing grains and vegetables. When there was a gas supply, the twice per day provision of "balanced" meals (containing grains, vegetables, and meat/fish) was more frequent than when there was no gas supply. Interestingly, neither the water supply nor the electricity supply affected the provision of balanced meals. Further, emergency shelters with larger numbers of evacuees had a lower possibility of cooking and lower availability of gas supply. Our results demonstrate that early improvements to post-disaster meal provision may maintain the health of evacuees. Such improvements could be achieved by 1) the speedy restoration of the gas supply to enable cooking, and 2) limiting the number of evacuees per emergency shelter.