About Me:
Rika Morioka was born in Japan, and educated in the United States. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, San Diego in medical and cultural sociology in 2008. Her dissertation was on the social construction of death from overworking in Japan. Her research interests include social determinants of health and illnesses, dominant and counter cultures in social change, and sexual division of labor. She has been active in public health field working for NGOs, the United Nations and research agencies around the world including Burma, Japan, and the United States. After working for WFP’s emergency responses to Cyclone Nargis in Burma in 2008 and UNICEF’s efforts to assist the victims of earthquake and tsunami disaster in Japan in 2011, she has been studying the impacts of disasters on social change. She has publications on the issues of drug use and recovery, death from overwork, emergency response to Japan’s triple disasters, risk perceptions of radiation from Fukushima, and mothers’ radiation-protection activism in Japan.
Area(s) of Training
medical sociology, public health, sociology
Area(s) of Expertise
Medical Sociology, Cultural Sociology
Current Area of Employment
Self-employed as researcher and NGO
