• Health Policy and Management
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.240-250
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• 2018

By the end of 2017, in a world of 7.6 billion people, there were inequalities in healthcare indices both within and between nations, and this gap continues to increase. Therefore, this study aims to understand the current status of regional inequalities in healthcare indices and to find an action plan to tackle regional health inequality through a geo-economic review in Korea. Since 2008, there was great inequality in life expectancy and healthy life expectancy by region in not only metropolitan cities but also districts in Korea. While the community health statistics from 2008-2017 show a continuous increase of inequality during the last 10 years in most healthcare indices related to noncommunicable diseases (except for some, like smoking), the inequality has doubled in 254 districts. Furthermore, health inequality intensified as the gap between urban (metropolitan cities) and rural regions (counties) for rates of obesity (self-reported), sufficient walking practices, and healthy lifestyle practices increased from twofold to fivefold. However, regionalism and uneven development are natural consequences of the spatial perspective caused by state-lead developmentalism as Korea has fixed the accumulation strategy as its model for growth with the background of export-led industrialization in the 1960s and heavy and chemical industrialization in the 1970s, although the Constitution of the Republic of Korea recognizes the legal value of balanced development within the regions by specifying "the balanced development of the state" or "ensuring the balanced development of all regions." In addition, the danger of a 30% decline or extinction of local government nationwide is expected by 2040 as we face not only a decline in general and ageing populations but also the era of the demographic cliff. Thus, the government should continuously operate the "Special Committee on Regional Balanced Development" with a government-wide effort until 2030 to prevent disparities in the health conditions of local residents, which is the responsibility of the nation in terms of strengthening governance. To address the regional inequalities of rural and urban regions, it is necessary to re-adjust the basic subsidy and cost-sharing rates with local governments of current national subsidies based mainly on population scale, financial independence of local government, or distribution of healthcare resources and healthcare indices (showing high inequalities) overall.

• International Journal of Contents
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.14-24
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• 2016

This study surveyed the variables associated with tailored user interfaces (UIs) to identify and apply to. healthcare web services. A total of 308 elderly people of age 50 and above), living in Incheon, South Korea, were surveyed through one-on-one interviews. The survey results of these 300 subjects were analyzed and used to demonstrate that younger subjects higher EQ-5D and TAM indices. The technology acceptance model showed the greatest effect on the perceived need for web services.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.217-224
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• 2021

The objective of this study is to investigate the healthcare status of South Korea and other member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) using OECD health statistics 2020. We employed the position value for relative comparison index to measure the healthcare status in five following components: demand, supply, accessibility, quality, and cost. The Mann-Kendall test was used to analyze for increasing or decreasing trend of the position value for relative comparison values from 2000 to the recent year. Results showed that Korea was positioned above than the OECD median values in most of components, but lower than the median values in certain indices including healthcare employment, primary care, and mental health care. This study sheds some light on healthcare issues to be improved and the policy-makes can take into account for prior setting process.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.81 no.2
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• pp.116-122
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• 2018

Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a serious chronic condition with a global impact. Symptoms of COPD include progressive dyspnea, breathlessness, cough, and sputum production, which have a considerable impact on the lives of patients. In addition to the human cost of living with COPD and the resulting death, COPD entails a huge economic burden on the Chinese population, with patients spending up to one-third of the average family income on COPD management in some regions is clinically beneficial to adopt preventable measures via prudent COPD care utilization, monetary costs, and hospitalizations. Methods: Toward this end, this study compared the relative effectiveness of six indices in predicting patient healthcare utilization, cost of care, and patient health outcome. The six assessment systems evaluated included the three multidimensional Body mass index, Obstruction, Dyspnea, Exercise capacity index, Dyspnea, Obstruction, Smoking, Exacerbation (DOSE) index, and COPD Assessment Test index, or the unidimensional measures that best predict the future of patient healthcare utilization, cost of care, and patient health outcome among Chinese COPD patients. Results: Multiple linear regression models were created for each healthcare utilization, cost, and outcome including a single COPD index and the same group of demographic variables for each of the outcomes. Conclusion: We conclude that the DOSE index facilitates the prediction of patient healthcare utilization, disease expenditure, and negative clinical outcomes. Our study indicates that the DOSE index has a potential role beyond clinical predictions.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.129-142
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• 2014

Due to the increase of the aged population and population of the disabled today, there is a growing demand for rehabilitation medical instruments. Furthermore, there is a growing demand for evaluation indices for services that should be provided for uses of the rehabilitation medical instruments. In order to evaluate rehabilitation medical instrument designs in this study, the basic index for design evaluations shall be identified to search for assessment plans. Through this, new evaluation indices will be deduced through discussions and analysis of rehabilitation medical experts, biomedical engineers, and designers. The results of this study are summarized as follows. First, the existing design evaluation indices were collected and analyzed to construct 10 rehabilitation medical instrument design evaluation indices and 44 sub-evaluation items. These will be important evaluation standards for designing rehabilitation medical instruments in the future. Second, the design evaluation indices that must be taken into consideration when developing health care rehabilitation medical instruments are the 10 design evaluation indices of usability, cognition, safety, learning, motility, durability, economic feasibility, space, aesthetics and environmental aspects. Third, design evaluation indices of environment, space, cognition, usability, economic feasibility and aesthetics are indices that must be taken into consideration for product design, while learning, safety, motility and durability are factors that must be given special consideration for rehabilitation medical instrument design evaluation indices. Fourth, if existing product design evaluation indices placed importance on environment, space, cognition, usability, economic feasibility and aesthetics of products for design evaluation indices, rehabilitation medical instrument design evaluation indices placed importance on learning, safety, motility and durability on top of usability and economic feasibility, which are the differences between the design evaluation indices of rehabilitation medical instrument and other product designs. The 10 rehabilitation medical device design evaluation indices and 44 sub-evaluation items were carried out in this study. This research is only on the overall rehabilitation medical device design evaluation indices. In future research, the evaluation indices will be applied in the actual rehabilitation medical design device through production of prototypes, while making revisions and supplementations where necessary.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.63-84
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• 2021

The present study was conducted to understand the turmoil effects of COVID-19 pandemic on the Malaysian stock market during the different periods of the Movement Control Order (MCO). The present study was based on the secondary data extracted from the DataStream and Bloomberg from 2nd January 2020 to 29th May 2020 to evaluate the effects of COVID-19 pandemic on the Malaysian stock market. The findings suggested that during the different periods of the Movement Control Order (MCO) from the 1st January to 29th May 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic adversely affected the performance of KLCI index and all sectoral indices. The weakest performance indices were energy, property, and finance while the least affected indices were healthcare, technology, telecommunications, and media. This paper provides a review of the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on the Malaysian stock market throughout the different periods of MCO.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.289-309
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• 2023

While South Korea's universal healthcare system has garnered attention in public health, the issue of inequality in healthcare service provision among different age groups has incessantly become a significant concern. The focus of this concern is primarily on essential healthcare services, encompassing fundamental aspects of healthcare such as internal medicine, family medicine, and pediatric and adolescent care. This inequality is not limited to differences among age groups (both junior and senior demographics) but also extends to potential disparities in healthcare services based on geographic location, particularly in urban and rural contexts. This paper aims to investigate disparities in primary healthcare service resources in South Korea's evolving economic landscape between 1995 and 2021. We utilize a set of inequality indices with a spatial perspective through geographic cluster analysis. The findings reveal that concerns about inequality have been amplified during various economic events, including the IMF crisis in 1999, the global financial crisis in 2008, and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. These years are identified as significant phases that have contributed to manifesting spatial disparities in primary healthcare provisions, with a particular emphasis on the senior-aged population rather than junior or all population groups. Our findings underscore the pressing need to address the unequal distribution of essential healthcare resources as part of preparedness for potential economic impacts, requiring a comprehensive consideration of the interconnected nature of demographic and spatial dimensions in healthcare services.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.27-32
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• 2010

The indoor environmental condition was assessed in houses with allergy (asthma and atopy) patients by use of a fungal detector. The fungal index was calculated from the growth rate of the sensor fungi in a fungal detector encapsulating the spores, Alternaria alternata S-78, Eurotium herbariorum J-183 and Aspergillus penicillioides K-712. Fungal indices were higher in asthma patient's houses than in control houses and Eurotium herbariorum showed the highest growth response among the sensor fungi. Dust mites allergen, Der f1, was also significantly high in allergy patient's houses where fungal indices above 10 were detected. A correlation was observed between the fungal indices and dust mite allergen proliferations in examined houses. Therefore, the fungal index can be a useful tool as an indirect indication for detecting chronic dampness that brings both contaminations by fungi and dust mite.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.244-256
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• 2018

Purpose: This study tried to understand discourses of life-sustaining treatments in general daily and healthcare newspapers. Methods: A text-network analysis was conducted using the NetMiner program. Firstly, 572 articles from 11 daily newspapers and 258 articles from 8 healthcare newspapers were collected, which were published from August 2013 to October 2016. Secondly, keywords (semantic morphemes) were extracted from the articles and rearranged by removing stop-words, refining similar words, excluding non-relevant words, and defining meaningful phrases. Finally, co-occurrence matrices of the keywords with a frequency of 30 times or higher were developed and statistical measures-indices of degree and betweenness centrality, ego-networks, and clustering-were obtained. Results: In the general daily and healthcare newspapers, the top eight core keywords were common: "patients," "death," "LST (life-sustaining treatments)," "hospice palliative care," "hospitals," "family," "opinion," and "withdrawal." There were also common subtopics shared by the general daily and healthcare newspapers: withdrawal of LST, hospice palliative care, National Bioethics Review Committee, and self-determination and proxy decision of patients and family. Additionally, the general daily newspapers included diverse social interest or events like well-dying, euthanasia, and the death of farmer Baek Nam-ki, whereas the healthcare newspapers discussed problems of the relevant laws, and insufficient infrastructure and low reimbursement for hospice-palliative care. Conclusion: The discourse that withdrawal of futile LST should be allowed according to the patient's will was consistent in the newspapers. Given that newspaper articles influence knowledge and attitudes of the public, RNs are recommended to participate actively in public communication on LST.

• Journal of The Korea Institute of Healthcare Architecture
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.53-65
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• 2012

Purpose: With the increasing national interest in health, the number of health examination centers is growing rapidly, and it is growing as independent medical institutes separated from hospitals. With the growing functions and size of health examination institutes, considerations for testees, who are the most important users of the health examination centers, have taken the back seat. In particular, for health examination programs that take on a sequential traffic line, it is important to be aware of the space of each examination room, but the lack of a scientific evaluation method for this has resulted in great discomforts for testees using the health examination center. Method: Thus, this study proposes risk evaluation indices (RCF TCF, RC3, RR, ARR), and set a standard health examination program based on the national health examination program. This was applied to 11 different sized health examination centers to find their features, and together with identifying the trends of the indices, the following results were deduced. Result: 1) ARR showed a wide-range feature as the number of unit spaces increased, while RR were discovered regardless of the size, thus displaying local features. 2) The increase of ARR is affected more by internal factors in the health examination center than from outside factors. 3) By gender, when separating the basic health examination fields, the connective relation of the comprehensive health examination fields had a big effect on ARR. 4) By becoming larger, the fields of function become independent and the waiting space that results from it increases the number of total movement, so there is space for improvement in this.