• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.89-93
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• 2017

Background: Rates of overweight and obese Australians are high and continue to rise, putting a large proportion of the population at risk of chronic illness. Examining characteristics associated with preference for a work-based weight-loss program will enable employers to better target programs to increase enrolment and benefit employees' health and fitness for work. Methods: A cross-sectional survey was undertaken at two Australian mining sites. The survey collected information on employee demographics, health characteristics, work characteristics, stages of behavior change, and preference for workplace assistance with reaching a healthy weight. Results: A total of 897 employees participated; 73.7% were male, and 68% had a body mass index in the overweight or obese range. Employees at risk of developing obesity-related chronic illnesses (based on high body mass index) were more likely to report preference for weight management assistance than lower risk employees. This indicates that, even in the absence of workplace promotion for weight management, some at risk employees want workplace assistance. Employees who were not aware of a need to change their current nutrition or physical activity behaviors were less likely to seek assistance. This indicates that practitioners need to communicate the negative effects of excess weight and promote the benefits of a healthy lifestyle to increase the likelihood of weight management. Conclusion: Weight management programs should provide information, motivation. and trouble-shooting assistance to meet the needs of at-risk mining employees, including those who are attempting to change and maintain behaviors to achieve a healthy weight and be suitably fit for work.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.35-46
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• 2014

Background: This paper describes the relationship and effect of health examination on personal medical cost by identifying the difference of the cost for medical care in physician visit between the population without and with health examination. Methods: After classifying into three cohorts in which, independent variables were designed according to the Andersen's behavioral model, the association of personal medical cost for medical care and prescription drugs which is dependent variable was analyzed by t-test and Mann-Whitney test for description and gamma regression model for inference. Results: In personal average medical cost, the population with health examination paid significantly more than without health examination, 11.6% more in cohort 2008, 26.6% more in cohort 2009, and 48.0% more in combined cohort. The odds ratio on medical expenditure of outpatients with health examination was 1.067, 1.126, 1.398 significantly in cohort 2008, 2009, and combined cohort respectively, comparing to the group without health examination. In independent variables, that is female, the elderly, never married, non-working, non-metropolitan, the higher family income, the smaller family size, people with disability, the people with chronic disease, and people with health examination have significantly being paid more tendency showing positive association with medical cost. Conclusion: This result showed that medical expenditure in physician visit has been increased after taking a health examination. Therefore reasonable limitation of getting preventive medical service is suggested to avoid medical shopping around and reduce being repeated health examination by unifying control to find out easily the clinical results from various medical facilities.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.372-374
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• 2017

Korea is one of the fastest aging country in the world. The increase in health expenditure is an inevitable problem in an aging country. We examined trend of benefit expenditure in National Health Insurance (NHI) by age group during 2001 to 2016. The benefit expenditure of NHI was 13.0 trillion won (2001) and 48.7 trillion won (2016); that is 3.76 times to 2001. This rapid increase was mostly due to people aged 65 and over. Proportion of beneficiaries aged 65 and over was 6.9% (2001) and 13.7% (2016), benefit expenditure per capita aged 65 and over was 279 thousand won (2001) and 960 thousand won (2016), and utilization days per capita aged 65 and over 21.44 (2001) and 30.23 (2016). This phenomenon was more pronounced in 75 or 85 aged and over. To contain the health costs for older people, the NHI system should be reformed.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.40-54
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• 1999

The purpose of this study is to compare the health service utilization patterns between up and myun and to find the determinants of utilization. For this purpose. this study used different versions of utilization rates. such as crude utilization rates. utilization rates adjusted for population composition. and age-sex adjusted utilization rates. Data used in this analysis were the Community Health Interview Survey which was conducted by interviewing 741 households from August 31 to September 11, 1998 in HongCheon-Gun. KangWon-Do. The major findings of the analysis are summarized as follows: 1. There was a statistically significant difference in the level of health service utilization between up and myun. Depending upon the unit of analysis employed (those who were interviewed vs those who were sick). the difference between up and myun was reversed. 2. Determinants of health service utilization are analyzed using logistic regression. The result showed that predisposing factor influenced health service utilization in rural areas, while the enabling factor didn't.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.128-135
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• 2014

Background: With ageing and growing importance of disease management system, it is necessary to investigate the extent of regional difference in service utilization for chronic diseases among the elderly and to reflect it in designing the system. Methods: A multiple regression analysis and descriptive statistics analyses were employed using patient survey, which covers nationwide health facilities and their users. Results: While the differences in the rate of service utilization/utilization outside living area between urban and rural areas or between income levels are not large, considerable variations are observed within urban or rural areas and within income groups. Conclusion: This results suggest that it is important to subsidize economically disadvantaged segments of the population and residents of less-favored areas to be better-equipped for chronic disease management in order to prevent the development of severe ailments and the need for treatment at higher-level medical institutions. Improvements to the service infrastructure in vulnerable regions are essential.

• 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.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.16-30
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• 2023

The elderly population is increasing owing to a low fertility rate and an aging population. In addition, life expectancy is increasing, and the advancement of medicine has increased the importance of health to most people. Therefore, government and companies are developing and supporting smart healthcare, which is a health-related product or industry, and providing related services. Moreover, with the development of the Internet, many people are managing their health through online searches. The most convenient way to achieve such management is by consuming nutritional supplements or seasonal foods to prevent a nutrient deficiency. However, before implementing such methods, knowing the nutrient status of the individual is difficult, and even if a test method is developed, the cost of the test will be a burden. To solve this problem, we developed a questionnaire related to nutrient classification twice, based upon which an adaptive algorithm was designed. This algorithm was designed as a machine learning based algorithm for nutrient classification and its accuracy was much better than the other machine learning algorithm.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.191-197
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• 2014

Background: Disabling fatigue is common in the working age population. It is essential that occupational health (OH) professionals are up-to-date with the management of fatigue in order to reduce the impact of fatigue on workplace productivity. Our aim was to evaluate the impact of one-day workshops on OH professionals' knowledge of fatigue and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), and their confidence in diagnosing and managing these in a working population. Methods: Five interactive problem-based workshops were held in the United Kingdom. These workshops were developed and delivered by experts in the field. Questionnaires were self-administered immediately prior to, immediately after, and 4 months following each workshop. Questionnaires included measures of satisfaction, knowledge of fatigue and CFS, and confidence in diagnosing and managing fatigue. Open-ended questions were used to elicit feedback about the workshops. Results: General knowledge of fatigue increased significantly after training (with a 25% increase in the median score). Participants showed significantly higher levels of confidence in diagnosing and managing CFS (with a 62.5% increase in the median score), and high scores were maintained 4 months after the workshops. OH physicians scored higher on knowledge and confidence than nurses. Similarly, thematic analysis revealed that participants had increased knowledge and confidence after attending the workshops. Conclusion: Fatigue can lead to severe functional impairment with adverse workplace outcomes. One-day workshops can be effective in training OH professionals in how to diagnose and manage fatigue and CFS. Training may increase general knowledge of fatigue and confidence in fatigue management in an OH setting.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.438-446
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• 2006

Objectives: We developed the predictive model for the incidence of colon cancer by utilizing the health screening data of the National Health Insurance in Korea. We also explored the characteristics of the high risk group for colon cancer. Methods: The predictive model was used to determine those people who have a high risk for colon cancer within 2 years of their NHI health screening, and we excluded the people who had already been treated for cancer or who were cancer patient. The study population is the insured of the NHI, aged 40 or over and they had undergone health screening from the year 2000 to 2004, according to NHI health screening formula. We performed logistic regression analysis and used SAS Enterprise Miner 4.1. Results: This study shows that there exists a higher rate of colon cancer in males than females. Also, for the population in their 60s, the incidence rate of colon cancer is much higher by 5.36 times than that for those people in their 40s. Amongst the behavioral factors, heavy drinking is the most important determinant of the colon cancer incidence (7.39 times in males and 21.51 times in females). Conclusions: Our study confirms that the major influencing factors for the incidence of colon cancer are drinking, lack of exercise, a medical history of colon polypus and a family history of colon cancer. As a result, we can choose the group that is at a high risk for colon cancer and provide customized medical information and selective management services according to their characteristics.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.538-560
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• 2012

This study tried to find out the level of national health expenditure and associated factors in the OECD countries and then to derive lessons for Korea's health financing based on the cross-national comparison. As a result, Korea's health expenditure in 2010(7.1% of GDP) accounted for 74.7 percent of the OECD average and ranked as countries to spend less on health. At the same time, the socio-economic indicators such as GDP per capita, elderly population ratio and the total tax revenue to GDP also remained between 72 ~ 82 percent of the OECD average. The public share of health financing(58.2%) was relatively lower than those of other countries. However the health expenditure and the public share have grown 1.9 ~ 2.4 times higher than the OECD average over the past decade. According to the quantitative analysis, countries with relatively high income and elderly population turned out to have high health expenditure. Whereas, an inverse relationship was found between the total health expenditure and the public funding. It was estimated that the value of national health expenditure to GDP decreases 0.083 when the rate of public funding increases 1 percent point. Further, the share of public funding was affected positively by the total tax burden. Based on these findings, this study suggests that the sustainable spending on health and alleviating households' direct burden could be ensured by enhancing the share of public funding along with adjusting the tax burden of the people.