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Architectural Institute of Korea (대한건축학회)
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Analysis on the Causes and Characteristics of Child Loss through Surveys

  • Choi, Jaepil (Department of Architecture and Architectural Engineering, Seoul National University) ;
  • Choi, Soyoung (Institute of Construction and Environmental Engineering, Seoul National University) ;
  • Yoo, Saewon (Department of Architecture and Architectural Engineering, Seoul National University) ;
  • Han, Gyu Bin (Department of Architecture and Architectural Engineering, Seoul National University)
  • Received : 2021.12.21
  • Accepted : 2022.08.08
  • Published : 2022.09.30
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Abstract

Since lost child occurs frequently around us and there is a possibility of leading to an accident or a crime subsequently, it is necessary to study and have a plan for preventing child loss in advance. However, the preceding studies do not systemize the causes of child loss by places or situations, and the policy focuses only on the countermeasures afterward instead of prevention. In such perspective, this study derived the causes of child loss through the analysis of 202 cases by the bottom-up method. In addition, the causes were analyzed by dividing them into as negligence of guardian, breakaway of child, and environmental characteristics. As a result, it is found that children get lost by complex reasons usually with two or three causes combined together. And children got lost when guardians were not able to pay attention to their children, or when children moved away from their guardians. Furthermore, the environmental characteristics act as the catalyst by arousing child loss or making it more difficult for guardian to find the lost child. As a fundamental research, this study may be helpful in developing a environmental design certification system for preventing child loss in advance.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

This research is part of the results of the assignment that is supported by a grant from National Research Foundation of Korea (Assignment number: NRF-2017R1D1A1B03029285).

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