• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.239-248
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• 2000

The aggravating water quality from the expansion of industrialization along with increasing population lead to develop more intensive physical measures to secure better drinking water quality. This study was mainly initiated to establish a water-pollutant buffering zone for the upper stream basin of Paldang--the major source area of drinking water for the metropolitan Seoul and suburban areas with a population more than 13 million. Two different criteria were considered in determining the buffering distance from the edge of the streamflow : 1km-width buffer zone for the special protection area which has been strictly controlled by the conventional laws for the protection of drinking water supply, and 500m-width buffer zone for the rest of the area. To delineate the exact boundaries of the water-pollutant buffering zone, GIS database was created integrating topography, hydrography, cadastral, and other related layers. The newly designated water-pollutant buffering zone would contribute to improve the water quality in a long term along with the conservation of the wet land. More study, however, should be made within the water-pollutant buffering zone such as the detailed survey of the pollutants, vegetation, and ecosystem for more effective management of the buffering zone.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.52 no.4
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• pp.234-241
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• 2019

Objectives: To identify simultaneous behavioral changes in alcohol consumption, smoking, and weight using a fixed-effect model and to characterize their associations with disease status. Methods: This study included 7 000 529 individuals who participated in the national biennial health-screening program every 2 years from 2009 to 2016 and were aged 40 or more. We reconstructed the data into an individual-level panel dataset with 4 waves. We used a fixed-effect model for smoking, heavy alcohol drinking, and overweight. The independent variables were sex, age, lifestyle factors, insurance contribution, employment status, and disease status. Results: Becoming a high-risk drinker and losing weight were associated with initiation or resumption of smoking. Initiation or resumption of smoking and weight gain were associated with non-high-risk drinkers becoming high-risk drinkers. Smoking cessation and becoming a high-risk drinker were associated with normal-weight participants becoming overweight. Participants with newly acquired diabetes mellitus, ischemic heart disease, stroke, and cancer tended to stop smoking, discontinue high-risk drinking, and return to a normal weight. Conclusions: These results obtained using a large-scale population-based database documented interactions among lifestyle factors over time.

• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.119-129
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• 2011

Purpose: This study firstly examined the pattern and prevalence of drinking. Secondly, we investigated the association between various psychosocial work environment and problem drinking among Korean male workers in different age groups. Methods: The study sample was a weighted population of 3,289 (3,289 survey samples) men aged 20 to 64 years who responded to the 2006 Korean Working Condition Survey. Social support from colleague and supervisor, work autonomy, psychological wellbeing at work, and intellectual and emotional work demand were assessed. Results: After considering sociodemographic factors, smoking, occupational characteristics and other psychosocial work environment factors, problem drinking was associated with "intellectual work demand" for the 20~34 year old group. Social support from colleague and supervisor was significantly associated with problem drinking in the 35~49 year old group. For the 50~64 year old group, problem drinking was associated with 'work autonomy'. Conclusion: The present study clarified that certain psychosocial work environmental factors relate to problem drinking, and the association varies among different age groups.

• Advances in environmental research
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.203-216
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• 2017

For survival of human beings clean water is an essential commodity whereas contamination in drinking water threatens to mankind. The main cause of water contamination is social and development activities of human being along with increasing population. The community in the study area has acute shortage of drinking water along with about 40 to 60% has no access to safe drinking water. This study indicates drinking water quality of two major sources of coastal belt of Karachi one is supplied by Karachi Water & Sewerage Board (KWSB) as tap water and the other through groundwater. The physicochemical analysis was carried out by following the standard methods for checking the quality of drinking water. The analyzed results showed that the quality of groundwater was unfit as potable water. The most critical situation was observed as high level of contamination followed by high turbidity and increased salinity levels. TDS in surface water were found 12% above and TDS in groundwater was 20% below the National Drinking Water Quality Standards (NDWQS) of Pakistan as well as the permissible WHO drinking water quality guidelines.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.37
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• pp.67-88
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• 1999

The purpose of this study was to identify the proportion of the population with the alcohol use disorder among the Korean adults. To the author's knowledge, this study was the first social work article to survey the prevalence of the alcohol use disorder using the randomly selected sample. The survey instrument included the Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test, the Brief Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test. and the Korean Alcoholism Screening Test to identify the rates of problem drinkers and alcoholics. The instrument also included items to ask the respondents' drinking frequencies, drinking amounts, and heavy drinking. The findings of the study indicated that Koreans had severe alcohol problems. 322 percent of the respondents were identified as those who have experienced drinking-related problems in the past year. This study found 4.2 percent of the respondents as alcoholics and estimated that 1.34 million of the Korean adult population were alcoholics. This study concludes that social workers should use screening tools to early identify clients with alcohol problems and develop effective programs to assist those clients and their families. Finally this study provide suggestions for future studies.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.7
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• pp.656-665
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• 2016

Objectives: This study examined the characteristics and related factors by comparing the lifestyles and health behaviors between Korean Seventh-day Adventists and the general population of Korea. Methods: A survey was conducted of 878 people more than 20-years-old Korean Seventh-day Adventists who live in the metropolitan area and 3,000 people more than 20-years-old who live in the metropolitan area in 4th (2nd year) National Health and Nutrition Survey. A comparison of health behaviors related to health screenings, smoking, drinking, physical activity, subjective stress, weight management, and oral health was analyzed using a chi-square test. Logistic regression analysis was used to identify the contributing factor to the health behavior. Results: Health screening rates among Korean Seventh-day Adventists were higher than the general population (p<0.001), but Korean Seventh-day Adventists showed lower rates of health screening in the 20-30 ages. Lifetime smoking experience rates and current smoking rates were significantly lower in the Korean Seventh-day Adventists than in the general population (p<0.001). The success rate of smoking cessation among ex-smokers of Korean Seventh-day Adventists were very high. In terms of the drinking rate, Korean Seventh-day Adventists were significantly lower than the general population (p<0.001). The drinking rate of men was higher than women (p<0.001). Moderate physical activity of men were higher than women in Korean Seventh-day Adventists (p<0.001). Conclusion: The lifestyles and health behaviors of Korean Seventh-day Adventists, such as tobacco smoking and alcoholic drinking, were eminently healthier than the general population. Nevertheless, further well-organized studies will be needed.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.21-29
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• 2006

Objectives: We wanted to estimate the annual socioeconomic costs of alcohol drinking in Korea. Methods: The costs were classified as direct costs, indirect costs and the other costs. The direct costs consisted of direct medical costs, indirect medical costs and subsidiary medical costs. Particularly, the medical costs and population attributable fraction for disease were considered to reflect the calculation of the direct medical costs. The indirect costs were computed by the extent to which the loss of productivity and loss of the workforce might have occurred due to changes in mortality and morbidity according to alcohol drinking. The other costs consisted of property loss, administration costs and costs of alcoholic beverage. Results: The annual costs, which seemed to be attributable to alcohol drinking, were estimated to be 149,352 hundred million won (2.86% of GDP). In case of the latter, the amount includes 9,091 hundred million won for direct costs (6.09%), 62,845 hundred million won for the reduction and loss of productivity (42.08%), 44,691 hundred million won for loss of the workforce (29.92%), and the other costs (21.91%). Conclusions: Our study confirms that compared with the cases of Japan (1.9% of GNP) and the other advanced countries (1.00-1.42% of GDP), alcohol drinking incurs substantial socioeconomic costs to the Korean society. Therefore, this study provides strong support for government interventions to control alcohol drinking in Korea.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.65-77
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• 2020

Objectives: This study investigated the average number of drinkers in Korea, the number of high-risk drinkers, the average amount of alcohol consumed by high-risk drinkers, and the types of alcohol consumed according to the characteristics of the group of dependent drinkers. Methods: The results were obtained by analyzing the following data: The Global Status Report on Alcohol and Health; Country Profile 2014; WHO Country Profile 2014; Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2014, Korean Statistical Information Service; National Tax Statistics-Liquor Tax; Gallup Drinking Frequency Survey 2015 Results: This study found that a large proportion of drinkers in Korea are already high-risk drinkers, and even among drinkers, alcohol consumption was highly biased. It was reported that 49.8% of men in the problem, abuse, and dependence groups accounted for 92.4% of total alcohol consumption among the male population. Notably, the 9.6% of men making up the dependent group consumed more than 30% of the alcohol ingested among males. Women had significant variations within groups that were considered high-risk and exhibited a large share of alcohol consumption in the problem (10.0% of the female population), abuse (1.8% of the female population), and dependence (1.5% of the female population) groups, constituting 72.8% of total alcohol consumption. The average amount of alcohol consumed by drinkers in Korea seems to have exceeded the level of intake by high-risk groups. Alcohol-dependent groups consumed 900.7 mL of soju, 405.2 mL of table wine, and 2,043.8 mL of beer, which is very similar to the consumption average of 2,031 mL of beer and 895.2 mL of soju in the drinking group. Conclusion: It has been shown that men's dependence on alcohol is serious, and it is possible to infer that alcohol consumption in some vulnerable groups is very high. As the average alcohol intake among alcohol-dependent groups and ordinary drinkers is very similar, it is highly likely that the drinker is an alcohol-dependent consumer in Korea.

• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.91-110
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• 2003

This study analyzed data from 1997 Korea's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System Survey collected through telephone questionings based on the multi-stage stratified random sampling. We categorized respondents into those who had ever drunk an alcoholic beverage in the last month and those who didn't and, referring to the World Health Organization's guideline, the former group were further categorized into low risk drinking group and high risk drinking group. Employing bivariate probit regression analyses with censoring on independent variables such as preferred type of alcoholic beverage, the number of types of beverages consumed, age, marital status, education, occupation, residential area, current smoking, body mass index and stress suggested (1) that those who prefer soju are more likely to involve high risk drinking than those who and prefer the other alcoholic beverages (2) that those who are relatively older, who live without a partner, who have jobs, who. are vulnerable to stress, or who enjoy more than one type of beverage are more likely to be exposed to high risk drinking than the others.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.389-397
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the prevalence and related risk factors of problem drinking in the Korean adult population. Participants (n=7,867) aged 19 years or older were selected from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey [KNHANES] of 2007-2008. Sociodemographic characteristics and AUDIT score were obtained from the KNHANES dataset. AUDIT scores were categorized into three groups, including low risk, intermediate risk, and high-risk alcohol drinking according to WHO guidelines. In this study, the prevalence of high-risk and intermediate-risk alcohol drinking were 12.2% and 21.0%, respectively. Adjusted mean AUDIT score was higher in men, younger individuals, as well as those with lower education levels and those that smoked. Results revealed that demographic variables, including sex, age, education level, and smoking, were important factors affected high-risk drinking. In particular, since smoking was the most significant risk factor, the adjusted odds ratio for high-risk drinking among participants that smoked was 4.78 [(95% confidence interval (CI)=3.75-6.10, p<.0001)]. This study suggests that men, younger age, low educational level, and smoking are the risk factors for a high-risk alcohol drinking.