• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.75-94
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• 1999

This study explored the understanding of health of people from Korea. Data were collected from a total of eighteen focus groups: Koreans (living in Korea), Korean-Australians, Korean-Americans and Australians. The data were analysed using QSR NUD＊IST. The meaning of health varied among people and it was related to differences in age, culture, gender, marital status and perceived health status of individuals. However, there were several themes common to everybody. All groups included aspects of physical, mental, emotional (and spiritual), environmental and social dimensions in their definitions of health. All young single groups placed more emphasis on physical and lifestyle factors whereas mental and emotional aspects and social responsibility were more associated with health among older married groups. Young women in all cultures felt social pressure to 'look good' and the media was perceived as responsible. Men in general associated health with societal roles and social competition. Health was strongly associated with the economy and economic stability for all Korean groups reflecting the recent adverse economic situation in Korea. This information will be of value to health professionals to provide more effective health services and health promotion programs for clients of Korean ethnicity living in multicultural societies like Australia and America.

• Korean Journal of Adult Nursing
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.198-210
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• 2015

Purpose: This study was to develop a health promotion program for marriage immigrant women and to evaluate its efficacy. Methods: The health promotion program was comprised of eight 100-minute weekly sessions. Each session included understanding of health responsibility, nutrition, physical activity, interpersonal relations, stress management, and self actualization. The research was conducted under the principles of nonequivalent control group pretest-post test design. The outcome variables were health promoting behavior, health status, acculturation, self efficacy, and perceived barrier. The participants were 15 immigrant women in the experimental group and 16 in the control group. Data was analyzed using ${\chi}^2$ test, Fisher's exact test, Mann Whitney U-test and Wilcoxon signed rank test. Results: There was a significant improvement in health promoting behaviors (U=-3.08, p=.002), left shoulder flexibility (U=-3.02, p=.003), right shoulder flexibility (U=-3.02, p=.003), low back flexibility (U=-3.37, p=.001), social health status (U=-3.38 p=.001) and subjective health status (U=-2.17 p=.030) in the experimental group compared to the control group. Conclusion: The health promotion program for marriage immigrant women was an effective intervention for improving health promoting behavior, physical health status, social health, and subjective health status. Therefore, the developed health promotion program needs to be applied to married immigrant women in other kinds nursing care settings in future research.

• Journal of Family Resource Management and Policy Review
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.1-23
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• 2016

This study analyzes the effects of caring for grandchildren on Korean grandparents' health, using the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging from 2006 to 2012. We investigate how caregiving is provided and analyze the effects of caregiving on grandparents' physical health, mental health, and health-related behaviors. As elderly people's health is generally frail, it is unclear whether the provision of childcare affects their health negatively. We control for the endogeneity of caregiving by an individual fixed effect (FE) model and instrumental variable-fixed effect (FE-IV) models. Using these models, we determine the endogeneity of caregiving and show that the significant effects of caregiving on health disappear as we control for endogeneity in the FE and FE-IV models. Even after controlling for endogeneity, we find that caregiving increases the probability of feeling pain as well as the number of different types of pain. Furthermore, caregiving increases the probability of restrictions on daily activities because of pain. On the other hand, caregiving reduces the symptoms of depression. In relation to health-related behaviors, caregiving reduces the probability of physical exercise and regular meals. Our results imply that although caregiving has a positive effect on mental health, the increase in physical pain and in non-healthy behaviors may lead to a deterioration of the caregiver's long-term health, which in turn may increase the medical costs of the elderly. Potential policy alternatives are discussed in the paper.

• Women's Health Nursing
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.123-133
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• 2022

Purpose: This study investigated the trajectory of subjective health status in married postmenopausal women and aimed to identify predictive factors affecting subjective health status. Methods: Data were obtained from women who participated in wave 4 (2012) of the Korean Longitudinal Survey of Women & Families Longitudinal Study and continued to the latest phase (wave 7, 2018). A latent growth model (LGM) was used to analyze data from 1,719 married postmenopausal women in the framework of the ecological system theory. Results: The mean age of the participants at wave 4 was 56.39±4.71 years, and the average subjective health status was around the midpoint (3.19±0.84). LGM analysis confirmed that subjective health status decreased over time (initial B=3.21, slope B=-0.03). The factors affecting initial subjective health were age, body mass index, frequency of vigorous physical activity (microsystem level), marital satisfaction (mesosystem level), and medical service utilization (macrosystem level). Medical service utilization and the frequency of vigorous physical activity were identified as predictive factors affecting the slope in subjective health status. The model fit was satisfactory (TLI=.92, CFI=.95, and RMSEA=.04). Conclusion: This analysis of the trajectory of subjective health status of married postmenopausal women over time confirmed that subjective health is influenced by overall ecological system factors, including the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem. Therefore, it is necessary to assess physical activity and support policies promoting access to medical services in order to improve the subjective health status of married postmenopausal women.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.55 no.5
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• pp.533-542
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• 2022

The total energy expenditure (TEE) consists of the basal energy expenditure (BEE), physical activity energy expenditure (PAEE) and the thermic effect of food. The PAEE accounts for a significant portion of the TEE and can be changed according to individual efforts, and the difference between individuals of PAEE is large. Even for the same physical activity, there is a difference in energy expenditure between adults and children. Therefore, a physical activity classification table for youth is needed to classify the physical activity recorded in the physical activity diary prepared to evaluate children's energy expenditure. It is also necessary to calculate the physical activity level required to set the estimated energy requirement in the Dietary Reference Intakes for children and adolescents in Korea. This paper reports a physical activity classification table for Korean youth using the 2017 Youth Compendium of Physical Activities in the United States. This physical activity classification table includes 110 specific activities classified into 14 major categories by four age groups (6-9, 10-12, 13-15, and 16-18 years old) and their metabolic equivalent values. Of these, 87 physical activities were selected from the 2017 Youth Compendium reported in the United States. Nine physical activities such as washing and going to the bathroom, which are daily activities of children and adolescents not included among them, were selected from the another list (2008) of physical activities in America. The remaining 15 physical activities were selected from the research results, which measured the energy expenditure of Korean children and adolescents. Activity categories were divided into 4 areas: daily activity (A), movement (B), school work (C), exercise and sports (D). This physical activity classification table will help standardize the interpretation and scoring process of physical activity of youth in related studies and community health surveys.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.73-83
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• 2010

Objectives: We investigated the clustering of selected lifestyle factors (cigarette smoking, heavy alcohol consumption, lack of physical exercise) and identified the population characteristics associated with increasing lifestyle risks. Methods: Data on lifestyle risk factors, sociodemographic characteristics, and history of chronic diseases were obtained from 7,694 individuals ${\geq}20$ years of age who participated in the 2005 Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES). Clustering of lifestyle risks involved the observed prevalence of multiple risks and those expected from marginal exposure prevalence of the three selected risk factors. Prevalence odds ratio was adopted as a measurement of clustering. Multiple correspondence analysis, Kendall tau correlation, Man-Whitney analysis, and ordinal logistic regression analysis were conducted to identify variables increasing lifestyle risks. Results: In both men and women, increased lifestyle risks were associated with clustering of: (1) cigarette smoking and excessive alcohol consumption, and (2) smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, and lack of physical exercise. Patterns of clustering for physical exercise were different from those for cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption. The increased unhealthy clustering was found among men 20-64 years of age with mild or moderate stress, and among women 35-49 years of age who were never-married, with mild stress, and increased body mass index (>$30\;kg/m^2$). Conclusions: Addressing a lack of physical exercise considering individual characteristics including gender, age, employment activity, and stress levels should be a focus of health promotion efforts.

• Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
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• v.56 no.6
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• pp.482-487
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• 2014

Objective : We assessed the life-time prevalence (LTP) of chronic low back pain (LBP) in young Korean males. We also evaluated the relationship between lumbar spinal lesions and their health related quality-of-life (HRQOL). Methods : A cross-sectional, self-reported survey was conducted in Korean males (aged 19-year-old) who underwent physical examinations for the conscript. We examined 3331 examinees in November 2014. We included 2411 subjects, who accepted to participate this study without any comorbidities. We interviewed using simple binary questions for their LBP experience and chronicity. HRQOL was assessed by Short-Form Health-Survey-36 (SF-36) in chronic LBP and healthy control groups. Radiological assessment was performed in chronic LBP group to determine whether there were any pathological causes of their symptoms. Results : The LTP of chronic LBP was 13.4%. Most (71.7%) of them didn't have any lumbar spinal lesions (i.e., non-specific chronic LBP). The SF-36 subscale and summary scores were significantly lower in subjects with chronic LBP. Between specific and non-specific chronic LBP group, all physical and mental subscale scores were significantly lower in specific chronic LBP group, except mental health (MH) subscale score. In MH subscale and mental component summary score, statistical significant differences didn't appear between two groups (p=0.154, 0.126). Conclusion : In Korean males 19 years of age, the LTP of chronic LBP was 13.4%, and more than two-thirds were non-specific chronic LBP. Chronic LBP had a significant impact on HRQOL. The presence of lumbar spinal pathoanatomical lesions affected mainly on the physical aspect of HRQOL. It influenced little on the mental health.

• Journal of the Korean Data and Information Science Society
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.829-846
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• 2014

Using complex sample design, this article analyzes the difference between sex and age groups of mental health, physical activity, suffering lifestyle diseases, drinking, and smoking using the fifth Korea national health and nutrition examination survey data (2011-2012), and then analyzes the effect of mental health, physical activity, suffering lifestyle diseases, drinking, and smoking on EQ-5D, a measure of health-related quality of life. The results show that mental health, physical activity, suffering lifestyle diseases, drinking and smoking are statistically different among gender and age groups, and that age group, education level, suffering diabetes, recognizing stress, thinking suicide are statistically influential on EQ-5D.

• Journal of Korean Public Health Nursing
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.80-94
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• 1996

This study was to investigated the complaints of physical and mental health problem of professors and officials in H University of Seoul and collected during the period from April 25 to May 31. 1995. The complaints of physical and mental health problem were measured by Cornell Medical Index. The results of this study are as follows: 1. Among the items of physical health problem. respondents showed the highest rate of complaints related to fatigability. and among the items of mental health problem. respondents showed the highest rate of complaints related to inadequacy. 2. Females showed significantly higher rates of complaints related to the musculoskeletal system(p<0.001), fatigability(p<.001). habits(p<.01), inadequacy(p<.05). and tension(p<.001) compared with those of males. Twenties showed significantly higher rates of complaints related to the digestive system(p<.01) compared with those of other age groups. Singles showed significantly higher rates of complaints related to the digestive system(p<.05). inadequacy(p<.01) and depression(p<.001) compared with those of marries. Officals showed significantly higher rates of complaints related to the cardiovascular system(p<.01). digestive system(p<.05), musculoskeletal system(p<.05), and tension(p<. 05) compared with those of professors. Resondents who have irregular eating habits showed significantly higher rates of complaints related to the digestive system(p<.01), musculoskeletal system(p<.05). habits(p<.05). and depression(p<.001) compared with those of respondents who have regular eating habits. Respondents who usually sleep below 6 hours a day showed significantly higher rates of complaints related to the cardiovascular system(p<.01). digestive system(p<.05). musculoskeletal system(p<.01). fatigability(p<.05). habits(p<.01). and tension(p<.05) compared with those of respondents who sleep above 6 hours.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.32 no.2 s.89
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• pp.140-148
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• 2006

Recently, indoor air quality (IAQ) in workplace, residential environments and schools has been concerned of people, scientists and related the public, and has recognized the health effects related to indoor air pollution. Therefore, this study was performed to investigate the characteristics of IAQ in 55 kindergartens, elementary school, middle schools, and high schools from June, 2004 to May, 2005 in Korea. We measured indoor air pollutants($PM_{10},\;CO_2$, HCHO, total bacteria colony(TBC), CO, radon, TVOCs, asbestos, and $O_3$), and physical factors(noise, temperature, relative humidity, and illumination) with necessary of management for IAQ in school. We classified into 5 kinds of the school by period since building completion, <1 year, 1-3 years, 3-5 years, and 5-10 years. The concentration of pollutants and the level of physical factors compared with standards and guidelines of IAQ on the Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Health and Welfare, and the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development. The major results obtained from this study were as follows. Temperature, relative humidity and illumination among the physical factors did not exceed the standards, but noise exceeded it. Asbestos and $O_3$ did not detect in surveyed classrooms. CO, TBC, TVOCs, and HCHO in kindergartens, TBC in elementary schools, TBC, TVOCs dnd HCHO in middle schools, and HCHO in high schools detected the standards. This study is conducted as a part of efforts to provide a foundational data for further relative researches on management of IAQ of school. Therefore, we suggest that country plan for management of IAQ in school should be established through long-term and continuous investigation for assessment on IAQ in school and health risk assessment for students.