• Title/Summary/Keyword: Health Care Consumer

Search Result 200, Processing Time 0.024 seconds

Consumer Perceptions of Food-Related Hazards and Correlates of Degree of Concerns about Food (주부의 식품안전에 대한 인식과 안전성우려의 관련 요인)

  • Choe, Jeong-Sook;Chun, Hye-Kyung;Hwang, Dae-Yong;Nam, Hee-Jung
    • Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
    • /
    • v.34 no.1
    • /
    • pp.66-74
    • /
    • 2005
  • This survey was conducted to assess the consumer perceptions of food-related hazard in 500 housewives from all over Korea. The subjects were selected by stratified random sampling method. The survey was performed using structured questionnaire through telephone interview by skilled interviewers. The results showed that 34.6% of the respondents felt secure and were not concerned about food safety, and 65.4% were concerned about food safety. Logistic regression analysis showed that the increasing concern on food brands, food additives (such as food preservatives and artificial color), and imported foodstuffs indicated the current increasing concern on food safety. Other related factors indicating the increasing concern on food safety were education level and care for children's health. The respondents who cared about food safety expressed a high degree of concern on processed foodstuffs such as commercial boxed lunch (93.3%), imported foods (92.7%), fastfoods (89.9%), processed meat products (88.7%), dining out (85.6%), cannery and frozen foods (83.5%), and instant foods (82.0%). The lowest degree of concern was on rice. All the respondents perceived that residues of chemical substances such as pesticides and food additives, and endocrine disrupters were the most potential food risk factors, followed by food-borne pathogens, and GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms). However, these results were not consistent with scientific judgment. Therefore, more education and information were needed for consumers' awareness of facts and myths about food safety. In addition, the results showed that consumers put lower trust in food products information such as food labels, cultivation methods (organic or not), quality labels, and the place of origin. Nevertheless, the respondents expressed their desire to overcome alienation, and recognized the importance of knowing of the origin or the producers of food. They identified that people who need to take extreme precautions on food contamination were the producers, government officials, food companies, consumers, the consumer's association, and marketers, arranged in the order of highest to lowest. They also believed that the production stage of agriculture was the most important step for improving the level of food safety Therefore, the results indicated that there is a need to introduce safety systems in the production of agricultural products, as follows: Good Agricultural Practice (GAP), Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP), and Traceability System (75).

Structural Relationships Among Factors to Adoption of Telehealth Service (원격의료서비스 수용요인의 구조적 관계 실증연구)

  • Kim, Sung-Soo;Ryu, See-Won
    • Asia pacific journal of information systems
    • /
    • v.21 no.3
    • /
    • pp.71-96
    • /
    • 2011
  • Within the traditional medical delivery system, patients residing in medically vulnerable areas, those with body movement difficulties, and nursing facility residents have had limited access to good healthcare services. However, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) provides us with a convenient and useful means of overcoming distance and time constraints. ICT is integrated with biomedical science and technology in a way that offers a new high-quality medical service. As a result, rapid technological advancement is expected to play a pivotal role bringing about innovation in a wide range of medical service areas, such as medical management, testing, diagnosis, and treatment; offering new and improved healthcare services; and effecting dramatic changes in current medical services. The increase in aging population and chronic diseases has caused an increase in medical expenses. In response to the increasing demand for efficient healthcare services, a telehealth service based on ICT is being emphasized on a global level. Telehealth services have been implemented especially in pilot projects and system development and technological research. With the service about to be implemented in earnest, it is necessary to study its overall acceptance by consumers, which is expected to contribute to the development and activation of a variety of services. In this sense, the study aims at positively examining the structural relationship among the acceptance factors for telehealth services based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). Data were collected by showing audiovisual material on telehealth services to online panels and requesting them to respond to a structured questionnaire sheet, which is known as the information acceleration method. Among the 1,165 adult respondents, 608 valid samples were finally chosen, while the remaining were excluded because of incomplete answers or allotted time overrun. In order to test the reliability and validity of the assessment scale items, we carried out reliability and factor analyses, and in order to explore the causal relation among potential variables, we conducted a structural equation modeling analysis using AMOS 7.0 and SPSS 17.0. The research outcomes are as follows. First, service quality, innovativeness of medical technology, and social influence were shown to affect perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness of the telehealth service, which was statistically significant, and the two factors had a positive impact on willingness to accept the telehealth service. In addition, social influence had a direct, significant effect on intention to use, which is paralleled by the TAM used in previous research on technology acceptance. This shows that the research model proposed in the study effectively explains the acceptance of the telehealth service. Second, the research model reveals that information privacy concerns had a insignificant impact on perceived ease of use of the telehealth service. From this, it can be gathered that the concerns over information protection and security are reduced further due to advancements in information technology compared to the initial period in the information technology industry, and thus the improvement in quality of medical services appeared to ensure that information privacy concerns did not act as a prohibiting factor in the acceptance of the telehealth service. Thus, if other factors have an enormous impact on ease of use and usefulness, concerns over these results in the initial period of technology acceptance may become irrelevant. However, it is clear that users' information privacy concerns, as other studies have revealed, is a major factor affecting technology acceptance. Thus, caution must be exercised while interpreting the result, and further study is required on the issue. Numerous information technologies with outstanding performance and innovativeness often attract few consumers. A revised bill for those urgently in need of telehealth services is about to be approved in the national assembly. As telemedicine is implemented between doctors and patients, a wide range of systems that will improve the quality of healthcare services will be designed. In this sense, the study on the consumer acceptance of telehealth services is meaningful and offers strong academic evidence. Based on the implications, it can be expected to contribute to the activation of telehealth services. Further study is needed to assess the acceptance factors for telehealth services, such as motivation to remain healthy, health care involvement, knowledge on health, and control of health-related behavior, in order to develop unique services according to the categorization of customers based on health factors. In addition, further study may focus on various theoretical cognitive behavior models other than the TAM, such as the health belief model.

The affective effect of odor products in relaxation and working contexts (휴식 및 집중 환경에서 방향 제품의 감성적 영향)

  • Suk, Hyeon-Jeong;Lee, Eun-Sol;Kim, Gok-Mi;Han, Sang-Ho
    • Science of Emotion and Sensibility
    • /
    • v.14 no.3
    • /
    • pp.395-402
    • /
    • 2011
  • As the consumer market for odor products grows, companies producing healthcare products are beginning to pay more attention to the emotional aspect of an odor product in order to differentiate their products from competitors. In the following research, the affective effect of odor product was investigated while focusing on relaxation and working contexts using orange and pine scents, since these are typical odors in current domestic market. Two empirical studies were carried out. First, in experiment I, 18 subjects, all of whom were university students, spent 20 minutes sitting comfortably on a sofa while electrocardiogram assessments were made. After a five-minute break, in experiment II, the same subjects were provided with both arithmetic and geometric questions and their electroencephalogram readings was recorded from eight channels. All subjects participated in three sessions - no odor, an orange scent, and then a pine scent - with a minimum time interval of 24 hours. The results show that in the context of a pine scent, both the activation ratio of subjects' parasympathetic system and those of the Sensory Motor Rhythm waves and Mid Beta waves were at the highest peak. Therefore, the pine scent helped the subjects to feel more comfortable and more focused at the same time. In other words, it gave them a state of meditated attention. In addition, it was found that the right brain was activated twice the intensity when the subjects worked through the geometric questions, whereas both sides of the brain were activated in equal magnitude during the process of arithmetic tasks. This replicates previous studies of the functional aspect of the right brain - being responsible for spatial and creative thinking.

  • PDF

Metabolic Diseases Classification Models according to Food Consumption using Machine Learning (머신러닝을 활용한 식품소비에 따른 대사성 질환 분류 모델)

  • Hong, Jun Ho;Lee, Kyung Hee;Lee, Hye Rim;Cheong, Hwan Suk;Cho, Wan-Sup
    • The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
    • /
    • v.22 no.3
    • /
    • pp.354-360
    • /
    • 2022
  • Metabolic disease is a disease with a prevalence of 26% in Korean, and has three of the five states of abdominal obesity, hypertension, hunger glycemic disorder, high neutral fat, and low HDL cholesterol at the same time. This paper links the consumer panel data of the Rural Development Agency(RDA) and the medical care data of the National Health Insurance Service(NHIS) to generate a classification model that can be divided into a metabolic disease group and a control group through food consumption characteristics, and attempts to compare the differences. Many existing domestic and foreign studies related to metabolic diseases and food consumption characteristics are disease correlation studies of specific food groups and specific ingredients, and this paper is logistic considering all food groups included in the general diet. We created a classification model using regression, a decision tree-based classification model, and a classification model using XGBoost. Of the three models, the high-precision model is the XGBoost classification model, but the accuracy was not high at less than 0.7. As a future study, it is necessary to extend the observation period for food consumption in the patient group to more than 5 years and to study the metabolic disease classification model after converting the food consumed into nutritional characteristics.

A Study on Organizational Effectiveness of Administrative Personnel in Hospitals (병원 행정직원의 조직효과성 수준)

  • Lee, Duk-Gu;Park, Eun-Cheol;Yu, Seung-Hum;Sohn, Tae-Yong
    • Korea Journal of Hospital Management
    • /
    • v.7 no.2
    • /
    • pp.52-79
    • /
    • 2002
  • The hospital is characterized by it's remarkable labor industry and human resources input by unit. Recently, the administrative personnel are recognized as an important staff to provide a hospital guidance to consumer and also easiness for consumer's visit to hospital. The purpose of this study is to find the organizational effectiveness of the administrative personnel in hospitals. The survey data involved in the study was derived from 229 personnels working in 3 medium and small sized hospitals and 1 university hospital in Inchon area. The major finding are as follows; 1. The organizational efficiency in accordance with the general characteristics of subjects in order of over 31 years of age, university graduates, long-term tenure and high position is higher, whereas, in as much as wage and well trained personnels in are higher, general hospital's organizational efficiency is higher in comparison with those of university hospital. 2. The organizational efficiency in accordance with satisfaction and the psychological motive contributional factors is higher as much as the high satisfactory level in every hospitals in general. 3. The organizational efficiency in accordance with the factors of job characteristics is higher in as much as difficulty of the jobs is lesser, however there was not statically significance. In as much as job standard level is higher and the more job responsibility the higher organizational efficiency. It was obvious that the higher professional expertise as well as the training and application level are improving the organizational efficiency. 4. The organizational efficiency in accordance with the factors of structural characteristics was higher in as much as the intercommunication was smooth and the structural formalization level are higher, however there was not statically significance between the participation level of decision making and the organizational efficiency. 5. In as much as older age, management of organization and the job level are satisfied, the higher structural formalization level, the smooth intercommunication have affected as major influence factors of organizational efficiency. 6. In the university hospitals is satisfied in the management and job level of hospital organization as there are no difficult jobs while the level of hospital's organizational formality is high and the intercommunication is smooth, which are improving the organizational efficiency. In the general hospitals is also satisfied the management and job level of hospital organization and psychological motive contributional factors is higher, it was apparent that the organizational efficiency is higher in as much as the level of job standardization is high and the intercommunication is smooth. As a result of this study, in order for improving the organizational efficiency of administrative personnel in hospitals, the management and job level as well as personal relation are preferably satisfied, whereas formalization of organization, intercommunication and etc. should be satisfied, and, therefore, it is advisable to buildup discriminated organizational management and environment for different division on the basis above factors. Since this study is carried on four hospitals in Inchon area, there is a certain limit to generalize its result to all domestic hospitals, nevertheless the gallop poll was made by developing the questionnaires with reasonability and reliability. Especially. as the study was carried by analyzing the comparison of influence factors' difference of organizational efficiency in accordance with the divisional characteristics of the university and general hospitals.

  • PDF

A Study of Detainees' Perceptions of the Detention Facilities of the Police Station and their Operation (경찰서 유치장 시설 및 운영에 관한 유치인의 인식연구)

  • Jung, Woo-Yeoul;Park, Dong-Kyun;Kim, Do-Kyun
    • Korean Security Journal
    • /
    • no.13
    • /
    • pp.423-449
    • /
    • 2007
  • This research is to investigate the detention facilities of police stations and their real operations through the perceptions of detainees at police station cells and to present the policy suggestions for them. To fulfill the research, a questionnaire was made out on the basis of 'the Regulation on Detention and Escort for Suspects'. 'the Regulation on a Standard Plan for Detention Facilities' and 'the Regulation on the Lowest Standard to Treat Detainees' ; and detainees at 23 police station cells under the jurisdiction of Kyungbuk Local Police Agency were asked to answer it. Policy suggestions following from the result of the investigation of detainees' perceptions of the detention facilities of the police stations are as follows; Firstly, the structure of police station cells should be arranged in straight lines in order to take their human rights into consideration and more detention facilities are needed to be built in order to separate male, female, handicapped and juvenile inmates. Secondly, shower rooms and washrooms outside the cells should always be open to detainees whenever they need to be used. Thirdly, any detention facilities deficient in fire fighting equipment should have exit doors installed as soon as possible in case of an emergency and provide sufficient fire extinguishers considering the number of detainees and the size of the facilities. Fourthly, the detention facilities should have sufficient windows for ventilation and take necessary measures to obtain natural lighting instead of electric lighting. Fifthly, air conditioners should be equipped properly taking account of the number of detainees and the dimensions of the facilities. Policy suggestions according to the result of the investigation of detainees' perceptions of the operation of detention facilities of police stations are as follows; Firstly, the problem of operating the detention facilities must deal with worn-out facilities and measures to secure the budget should be taken as soon as possible. Secondly, considering that most detained suspects have difficulties in livelihood, daily necessaries must be issued to them. Thirdly, personal belongings deposited by inmates must be properly managed with the same documentation throughout the police station detention facilities. The number of female guards to take exclusive charge of the physical checkups and processing of female detainees should be increased. Also the facilities for handicapped detainees must be expanded, improved and managed properly. Fourthly, except for handcuffs and ropes to bind detainees in the detention facilities, helmets to prevent self-harm must be withdrawn. The budget to improve the quality of meal issued by the government must be urgently secured and the price of private food sent to detainees must be readjusted to be in line with the consumer price. Health and medical care and sanitation for detainees must be substantial, and also sunbathing and outdoor exercises should be allowed to detainees.

  • PDF

A Study on the Variables Affecting the Intention to Use Healing Agriculture (치유농업 이용의도에 영향을 미치는 변인 고찰)

  • Kim, Ok Ja;Ha, Kyu Soo
    • Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
    • /
    • v.13 no.4
    • /
    • pp.59-72
    • /
    • 2018
  • The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors affecting the intention to use healing farming by setting aged readiness, rural healing supply condition, and rural healing service as independent variables. This study has been started based on the idea that it is necessary to provide healing service through healing agriculture to the rapidly increasing elderly people and urban people who need mental rest. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to find out the various factors influencing intention to use healing agriculture through empirical analysis. Second, we want to examine whether the variables influenced the intention to use more. Third, based on the results of these tests, we suggest the policy for activation of healing agriculture by examining the factors necessary for the promotion of physical and mental health of the elderly in the aging society and the revitalization of healing agriculture for the mental healing of the urban people. For this study, a questionnaire survey was conducted for men and women over 30 years old, and the final 356 copies were analyzed. The validity of the research hypothesis was verified by linear regression analysis. The results of the analysis are as follows. First, the physical preparation, emotional preparation, and economic preparation of aged care preparations were found to have a significant effect on intention to use. Second, natural landscape, accessibility, and stability of rural healing supply conditions were found to have a significant effect on intention to use. But economics and expertise were dismissed. Third, crop cultivation, animal medication and healing facilities of rural healing service were proved to have significant influence on intention to use. In order to increase the utilization of healing agriculture, it is necessary for the consumer to be well prepared for aging. In rural healing supply conditions, accessibility and safety should be provided for healing facilities in rural healing services.And to increase the intention to use it.

Causal Relation Analysis of Foreigners' Perceptions of Korean Ginseng Products and the Purchase Intentions (한국 인삼제품에 대한 외국인의 인식도와 구매의도의 관계 분석)

  • Choi, N.Y.;Han, S.J.;Chang, K.J.
    • Journal of Practical Agriculture & Fisheries Research
    • /
    • v.20 no.1
    • /
    • pp.19-34
    • /
    • 2018
  • This study was initiated because many studies would be necessary to promote Korean ginseng products when the sales of Korean ginseng are declining and many Korean ginseng farmers are facing economic difficulties. The increase in domestic sales is important, but this study is targeting for foreigner's perceptions of Korean ginseng and how to improve the products. The goal of this study is to analyze how to increase their purchase intentions of Korean ginseng products. Questionnaire survey research methods were used to learn more about making certain improvements to ginseng products, consumers are hoping, how affect their perceptions and purchase intentions of Korean ginseng, as well as how foreigners' perceptions of Korean ginseng products affects purchase intentions. Because it's difficult to find any studies about foreigner's Korean ginseng purchase intentions, the survey was expanded to include how people take care of their health, the accessibility of purchasing ginseng products, psychological factors as well as consumer characteristics, satisfaction with Korean ginseng, and intentions of buying Korean ginseng products. The result of the analysis on how making certain desired improvements to and perceptions of Korean ginseng products affect purchase intentions indicated that Korean ginseng perceptions highly affected the purchase intentions; however making certain improvements to ginseng products showed a low impact on the purchase intentions. In other words, making certain improvements, such as convenience of the ginseng products, doesn't affected Korean ginseng purchase intentions directly. On the other hand, it showed that the usefulness, its high quality, and safety trust of Korean ginseng have a big impact on purchasing intentions. If the ginseng that is grown and processed in Korea is better promoted for its high value, the Korean ginseng farmers who are facing many economic difficulties will be able to raise their income.

A Study on Risk Parity Asset Allocation Model with XGBoos (XGBoost를 활용한 리스크패리티 자산배분 모형에 관한 연구)

  • Kim, Younghoon;Choi, HeungSik;Kim, SunWoong
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
    • /
    • v.26 no.1
    • /
    • pp.135-149
    • /
    • 2020
  • Artificial intelligences are changing world. Financial market is also not an exception. Robo-Advisor is actively being developed, making up the weakness of traditional asset allocation methods and replacing the parts that are difficult for the traditional methods. It makes automated investment decisions with artificial intelligence algorithms and is used with various asset allocation models such as mean-variance model, Black-Litterman model and risk parity model. Risk parity model is a typical risk-based asset allocation model which is focused on the volatility of assets. It avoids investment risk structurally. So it has stability in the management of large size fund and it has been widely used in financial field. XGBoost model is a parallel tree-boosting method. It is an optimized gradient boosting model designed to be highly efficient and flexible. It not only makes billions of examples in limited memory environments but is also very fast to learn compared to traditional boosting methods. It is frequently used in various fields of data analysis and has a lot of advantages. So in this study, we propose a new asset allocation model that combines risk parity model and XGBoost machine learning model. This model uses XGBoost to predict the risk of assets and applies the predictive risk to the process of covariance estimation. There are estimated errors between the estimation period and the actual investment period because the optimized asset allocation model estimates the proportion of investments based on historical data. these estimated errors adversely affect the optimized portfolio performance. This study aims to improve the stability and portfolio performance of the model by predicting the volatility of the next investment period and reducing estimated errors of optimized asset allocation model. As a result, it narrows the gap between theory and practice and proposes a more advanced asset allocation model. In this study, we used the Korean stock market price data for a total of 17 years from 2003 to 2019 for the empirical test of the suggested model. The data sets are specifically composed of energy, finance, IT, industrial, material, telecommunication, utility, consumer, health care and staple sectors. We accumulated the value of prediction using moving-window method by 1,000 in-sample and 20 out-of-sample, so we produced a total of 154 rebalancing back-testing results. We analyzed portfolio performance in terms of cumulative rate of return and got a lot of sample data because of long period results. Comparing with traditional risk parity model, this experiment recorded improvements in both cumulative yield and reduction of estimated errors. The total cumulative return is 45.748%, about 5% higher than that of risk parity model and also the estimated errors are reduced in 9 out of 10 industry sectors. The reduction of estimated errors increases stability of the model and makes it easy to apply in practical investment. The results of the experiment showed improvement of portfolio performance by reducing the estimated errors of the optimized asset allocation model. Many financial models and asset allocation models are limited in practical investment because of the most fundamental question of whether the past characteristics of assets will continue into the future in the changing financial market. However, this study not only takes advantage of traditional asset allocation models, but also supplements the limitations of traditional methods and increases stability by predicting the risks of assets with the latest algorithm. There are various studies on parametric estimation methods to reduce the estimated errors in the portfolio optimization. We also suggested a new method to reduce estimated errors in optimized asset allocation model using machine learning. So this study is meaningful in that it proposes an advanced artificial intelligence asset allocation model for the fast-developing financial markets.

Global Cosmetics Trends and Cosmceuticals for 21st Century Asia (화장품의 세계적인 개발동향과 21세기 아시아인을 위한 기능성 화장품)

  • T.Joseph Lin
    • Journal of the Society of Cosmetic Scientists of Korea
    • /
    • v.23 no.1
    • /
    • pp.5-20
    • /
    • 1997
  • War and poverty depress the consumption of cosmetics, while peace and prosperity encourage their proliferation. With the end of World War II, the US, Europe and Japan witnessed rapid growth of their cosmetic industries. The ending of the Cold War has stimulated the growth of the industry in Eastern Europe. Improved economies, and mass communication are also responsible for the fast growth of the cosmetic industries in many Asian nations. The rapid development of the cosmetic industry in mainland China over the past decade proves that changing economies and political climates can deeply affect the health of our business. In addition to war, economy, political climate and mass communication, factors such as lifestyle, religion, morality and value concepts, can also affect the growth of our industry. Cosmetics are the product of the society. As society and the needs of its people change, cosmetics also evolve with respect to their contents, packaging, distribution, marketing concepts, and emphasis. In many ways, cosmetics mirror our society, reflecting social changes. Until the early 70's, cosmetics in the US were primarily developed for white women. The civil rights movement of the 60's gave birth to ethnic cosmetics, and products designed for African-Americans became popular in the 70's and 80's. The consumerism of the 70's led the FDA to tighten cosmetic regulations, forcing manufacturers to disclose ingredients on their labels. The result was the spread of safety-oriented, "hypoallergenic" cosmetics and more selective use of ingredients. The new ingredient labeling law in Europe is also likely to affect the manner in which development chemists choose ingredients for new products. Environmental pollution, too, can affect cosmetics trends. For example, the concern over ozone depletion in the stratosphere has promoted the consumption of suncare products. Similarly, the popularity of natural cosmetic ingredients, the search of non-animal testing methods, and ecology-conscious cosmetic packaging seen in recent years all reflect the profound influences of our changing world. In the 1980's, a class of efficacy-oriented skin-care products, which the New York Times dubbed "serious" cosmetics, emerged in the US. "Cosmeceuticals" refer to hybrids of cosmetics and pharmaceuticals which have gained importance in the US in the 90's and are quickly spreading world-wide. In spite of regulatory problems, consumer demand and new technologies continue to encourage their development. New classes of cosmeceuticals are emerging to meet the demands of increasingly affluent Asian consumers as we enter the 21st century. as we enter the 21st century.

  • PDF