• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.40-50
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• 2018

Objective: This study presented the analysis period, the complexity of combined therapy and comparator choice as the key limitations in the economic evaluation of new drugs, and discussed programs for coping with these limitations. Methods: This study evaluated the post-evaluation, risk-sharing agreement, extra funding program, and flexible incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) threshold as actions or programs that would increase accessibility to costly new drugs. The study also presented the cases of other countries. The application of the post-evaluation was considered to deal with high uncertainty regarding new drugs. Results: The risk-sharing agreement was introduced in European countries as well as South Korea and has been responsible for the shift from using the financial schemes to outcome-based schemes. The drug funding program has had troubled in securing stable extra funds. The application of higher ICER in the economic evaluation of expensive and innovative oncology drugs was criticized because of the inequity between oncology patients and patients with other diseases. Conclusion: Therefore, introducing and applying actions that would increase the accessibility to costly new drugs in South Korea have been deemed necessary after careful reviews and discussions with various stakeholders (insurer, policy makers, pharmaceutical companies and patients).

• The Korean Journal of Health Service Management
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.115-125
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• 2014

This study tries to investigate inequity in supplementary private health insurance insured in terms of the analysis of insurance insured general characteristics and to analyze the influence of supplementary private health insurance on their admission and their outpatient medical utilization behavior. As a result of the analysis of the general characteristics of supplementary private health insurances insured, it has turned out that men, persons at low ages, people with a spouse and chronic diseases, and persons with a high income have applied such insurances more. We can also tell that low-income classes have difficulty in applying private health insurances as people in the fifth income quintile have applied such insurances about 9 times as much as those in the first income quintile. The analysis of supplementary private health insurance insured health care utilization behavior has revealed that both male and female insured aged less than 55 and without chronic diseases have increases the number of their use of health care, their patient charge, and their medical cost per visit.

• The Korean Journal of Emergency Medical Services
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.17-27
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• 2019

Purpose: To provide legislative data for the amendment of Article 36 of the Emergency Medical Service Act on the qualifications of emergency medical technicians. Methods: The study was drafted based on the Emergency Medical Service Act; data on the emergency medical technicians (EMT) system and curriculum in Korea, United States. Japan, and Taiwan; and previous studies on the EMT system in Korea. Results: The length of education. work scope. amd role of level 1 EMTs vary significantly depending on the type of qualifications they have as emergency medical professionals, while the supply of level 1 EMTs has already reached a point of saturation. Accordingly, the current regulation on allowing level 2 EMTs with at least three years of experience to take the level 1 EMT test presents serious inequity for students just graduating from their emergency medical services program. It is also a factor that degrades the professionalism of level 1 EMTs. Conclusion: Article 36, paragraph 2. subparagraph 3 of the Emergency Medical Services Act pertaining to regulations on "EMTs who have worked as level 2 EMTs for at least 3 years" needs to be removed.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.7
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• pp.2348-2356
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• 2021

As a relatively new radiation imaging method, the cosmic-ray muon scattering imaging technology can be used to prevent nuclear smuggling and is of considerable significance to nuclear safety. Proposed in this paper is a new reconstruction algorithm based on density clustering, aiming to improve inspection quality with better performance. Firstly, this new algorithm is introduced in detail. Then in order to eliminate the inequity of the density threshold caused by the heterogeneity of the muon flux in different positions, a new flux correction method is proposed. Finally, three groups of simulation experiments are carried out with the help of Geant4 toolkit to optimize the algorithm parameters, verify the correction method and test the inspection quality under shielded condition, and compare this algorithm with another common inspection algorithm under different conditions. The results show that this algorithm can effectively identify and locate nuclear material with low misjudging and missing rates even when there is shielding and momentum precision is low, and the threshold correcting method is universally effective for density clustering algorithms.

• Korean Medical Education Review
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.127-136
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• 2019

Medical schools have been working to produce competent doctors and improve the quality of care by introducing and implementing new curricula and innovative teaching and learning methods. Despite these efforts, health disparities within and between countries still exist. To close these gaps, medical schools must identify the priorities of the community, region, and/or nation and conduct education, research, and service that reflect them-the core foundation of the social accountability of medical schools. Many medical schools and networks around the world have tried to achieve social accountability, but this needs more attention in Korea. This study will review the literature in aims to improve understanding and promote the implementation of the social accountability of medical schools. Most medical schools that practice the principles of social accountability focus primarily on the medically underserved in their communities or those who have limited access to health services, and have built collaborative partnerships with stakeholders to meet the needs of society. In addition, in order to implement social accountability effectively and efficiently, medical schools have developed strategies and various evaluation frameworks appropriate to the context of each school. To have more socially accountable medical schools, it is necessary to clarify the concept of social accountability and to establish a system that can evaluate the impacts. Medical schools exist to alleviate suffering and promote health, and this can be accomplished through social accountability.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.53-62
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• 2022

Background: This study was designed to examine regional proportions for people who experienced unmet health care needs due to reduced mobility or unhealthiness and factors associated with experience of unmet health care needs by them. Methods: A total of 11,620 people were retrieved from the Korea Health Panel data (2014-2018). Regional proportions for people who experienced unmet health care needs due to reduced mobility or unhealthiness were estimated using cross-sectional weights and the factors associated with them were analyzed using generalized estimating equation. Results: The number of people who experienced unmet health care needs due to reduced mobility or unhealthiness was estimated as 278,083 in 2018. Women, the aged (65+), below elementary school, single as marital status, low income, bad self-rated health, people with disabilities, and long-term insurance beneficiaries were statistically significantly associated with experience of unmet health care needs due to reduced mobility or unhealthiness. Conclusion: Given high and dispersed demand for visiting health care, government need to expand the infrastructure and finance to facilitate visiting health care.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.1
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• pp.351-356
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• 2021

Korean nuclear power plants (NPPs) have various radiation protection programs to attain radiation exposure as low as reasonably achievable (ALARA). In terms of ALARA, this paper provides a comprehensive overview of administrative dose control for occupationally-exposed workers in Korean NPPs. In addition to dose limits, administrative dose constraints are implemented to resolve an inequity of radiation exposure in which some individuals in NPPs receive relatively higher doses than others. Occupational dose constraints in Korean NPPs are presented in this paper with the background of how those values were determined. For pressurized water reactors, 80% and 90% of the annual average limit for an effective dose, 20 mSv/y, are set as the primary and secondary dose constraints, respectively. Pressurized heavy water reactors (PHWRs) have also established the primary and secondary dose constraints corresponding to 70% and 80% of the effective dose limit, and additional constraints for tritium concentration are provided to control internal exposure in PHWRs. Follow-up measures for exceeding these administrative dose constraints are also introduced compared to exceeding the dose limits. Finally, analysis results of dose distributions show how the implementation of administrative dose constraints impacted the occupational dose distributions in Korean NPPs during the years 2009-2018.

• KIEAE Journal
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.45-51
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• 2017

Purpose: Housing is the most essential element for well-being in a society. The government would continuously supply decent housings to make a better living condition for people. As various housing policies have been implemented into practice, the effectiveness of policies need to be assessed and improved to rearrange the financial resources. The indicators, such as quality of life, housing supply amount and etc, could be used to estimate housing policy to provide a guidance for a new policy direction. Though various indicators are utilized to assess the policy effect, most of the items are depend upon a relativeness in aspect to assessment goal, items, time and its weighting. Therefore, it needs an absolute indicator to compare the policy effectiveness regardless of time elapse or items. In this paper, it developed the housing welfare indicator to assess the level of living condition, utilizing the Gini coefficient which is used for explanation on income distribution. Method: To suggest an inequity indicator, this paper used Gini coefficient to explain the level of living condition which is used on economics to provide the level of income distribution. Data are collected through the Korea Housing Survey by Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport between 2006 and 2014. Indicators of living condition focused on the development of the estimation model using the frequency of room use. Result: Gini coefficient between 2004 and 2014 is about 1.5 score except in year 2013, and the trend of score has been decreased slowly which means the inequality gradually improved. In this result, it implies the living condition and distribution level would be improved than before.

• Journal of Environmental Policy
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.101-131
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• 2015

A cap-and-trade program accounting for 60 percent of total national greenhouse gas emissions was launched in South Korea in 2015. Academic literature expects that the implementation of such a policy is likely to adversely impact income distribution among various socioeconomic groups in developed countries. South Korea is challenged by equity issues, as well circumstances, the distributional implications of carbon pricing policies need to be examined and reflected in the design of the program prior to implementation in order not to exacerbate social inequity. Using environmentally extended input-output analysis together with household expenditure data, this study finds that a carbon pricing policy will be regressive in South Korea, but the extent depends on whether relative burdens of a carbon pricing policy are measured based on current incomes or proxies of permanent incomes. Along with poor households, this paper finds that elderly and urban households will be more adversely impacted in South Korea. These burdens can be relieved if a small fraction of the revenue is redistributed to households.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.60 no.1
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• pp.159-185
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• 2008

The balance between centralization (power concentrated nationally) and decentralization (power devolved to local government) is a perennial issue in the field of social welfare administration. In the design of social welfare administration, values and assumptions related to decentralization and centralization generally are expressed in choices concerning pluralism versus uniformity, small versus large. In this context, this article tried to find and analyze the problems of financial decentralization of social welfare pursued by No Moo-hyun government. The decentralization of social welfare caused horizontal inequity between local governments, lack of social welfare finance of local government, and impediment of local government finance autonomy.