• Environmental Analysis Health and Toxicology
• /
• v.31
• /
• pp.24.1-24.7
• /
• 2016

The humidifier disinfectant disaster (HDD) was not a simple poisoning accident by biocides, but a singular disaster in history created by chemicals in household products. This disaster was a result of the failure of a system for the management of chemical and product safety. Since the management authority for chemical usage safety is different from those for chemical safety in products, many blind areas for chemical safety management in products still remain. The 'Act on the Registration and Evaluation, etc. of Chemical Substances (ARECS)' or the new 'Biocidal Product Act' must not only address the blind areas in the management system for chemical and product safety, but also prevent a second HDD. To prevent another HDD, an integrated registration, evaluation, and management system for chemicals and consumer products must be incorporated into the 'ARECS' as an essential part for chemical safety in consumer products.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
• /
• v.13 no.1
• /
• pp.53-66
• /
• 1980

The editorials of the leading newspapers may reflect as well as help formulate the public opinions to a significant degree. Bearing this in mind, this study was carried out to provide information useful in formulating such public health policies that could practically meet the social interests and demands in health appearing in the editorials of the newspapers. This analysis covered the editorials of 5 leading newspapers such as Donga Ilbo, Chungang Ilbo, Hankook Ilto, Chosun Ilbo and Seoul Shinmoon for about 10 years from Jan. 1st, 1970 through Oct. 31th, 1979. The major findings are as follows: 1. The total number of health-concerned editorials in the five daily papers for the period was 1,768 or occupied 6.4% of the total editorials of the same sources. The increasing trend of frequnecy of the health-concerned editorials since 1976 indicates the increment of social interests and demands in health. Analysing the contents, environmental pollution received the greatest attention in those editorials, which was followed by medical affairs, environmental sanitation, and disease control in order in terms of frequency of appearance. However, there was a tendency that the interests in the environmental pollution, medical affairs and social welfare tended to increase year by year, whereas those in environmental hygiene and disease control comparatively decreased. 2. Motives of dealing with the health-concerned editorials were provided by announcement of the governmental policies and implementation for 25.6% and by out-breaks of the relevant events for 23.9%. This tendency coincides with the general characteristics of the editorials that reflect the timely issues. Closely analysing, however, the fact that the motives engendered by the out-breaks of the relevant events or by the season concerned comparatively tended to decrease as years pass by, indicates that the editorials tend more to seek the future-oriented demands in health rather than the current issue-oriented. 3. The editorials appeared to be more concerned with the governmental policies. 95.7% of all the editorials analysed were addressed to the government. This signifies the role of government in the field of public health and medical affairs. Their attitudes toward health-related policies of the government were much more negative than the other editorials that were addressed to the government in other fields. This suggests that the governmental interests in health were neither sufficient nor fair. 4. What the editorials most stressed were; (1) increment of governmental interests in health, (2) improvement of the governmental health administration, (3) enriching the basic statistics, and (4) development of various technologies pertinent to health affairs and disease control, and so forth. However, must of their suggestions were not concrete but rather abstract and conceptual. 5. The editorials also expressed strong interests in research area. The areas of the needed research most suggested by items are; (1) development of effective health care delivery system, (2) establishment of more practical system of calculating medical cost, (3) implementation of effective policies to control degenerative diseases, (4) division of medical care services and pharmaceutical services systems, (5) effective ways to prevent Co poisoning accidents, (6) changing status of environmental pollution and its effects upon health, and (7) status of occupational diseases, and so forth. 6. There were some editorials -not small in quantity -that have risk to mislead the public opinions as well as the health policies due to lack of professional knowledge of the writers. It is desirable to establish some kind of mechanism that screens the erroneous contents of the editorials to help prevent misleading opinions.

• Journal of the East Asian Society of Dietary Life
• /
• v.18 no.4
• /
• pp.608-617
• /
• 2008

This study examined the level of reaction towards damage related to health foods and the factors affecting this reaction among the elderly. Data were collected from 269 elderly individuals living in Seoul, Daejeon, Daegu, Gwangju and Busan. Frequencies, chi-square tests, and a multinomial logistic regression analysis were performed using the SPSS v. 14.0 program. When asked about their reaction towards damage related to health foods, approximately 48% of the respondents answered 'no response', 34% answered 'private response', and 18% answered 'public response'. Multinomial logistic regression analysis revealed that education level and awareness of health food price were significant factors influencing 'private response', and concerns about health foods and awareness of damage redemption were significant factors for 'public response'. These results imply that consumer education for elderly to prevent damage derived from the purchase and consumption of health foods is required.

• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
• /
• v.30 no.3
• /
• pp.25-34
• /
• 2013

Objectives: The main purpose of this study was to examine factors influencing school bullying victimization of middle school students in relation to social support, self-esteem, stress coping behavior, and health status. Methods: The questionnaire survey was carried out on a convenience sample of 441 middle school students. The data analysis procedure included frequency, ${\chi}^2$-test, t-test, and multiple logistic regression. Results: It was found that 18% of the subjects were bullied by other students. Multiple logistic regression analysis revealed that the factors such as sex(OR=2.35, p=.006), aggressive coping behavior(OR=1.18, p=.028), and health status(OR=1.04, p=.002) were significant affecting factors. Conclusions: The findings suggest that to prevent middle school students' bullying victimization, it is necessary to design intervention programs that considering their health status and stress coping behavior.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
• /
• v.25 no.3
• /
• pp.264-274
• /
• 1992

The tendency o taking supplements as the means of promoting health status has been increasing. This research was performed to reveal the influence of nutritional knowledge and health-consciousness on taking-supplements and to reveal that of general characteristics and related factors. The data were obtained by self-administering questionnaire and study population was adults aged 18-81 years living in Soul(N=1300) The overall response rate was 70%(N=910) The results can be summarized as follows: 1) A substantial percentage(82.5%) of the subjects used some kinds of nutrient supplements Forth nine percent of respondents used both drug type supplements and food type supplements 2) The main reasons for taking supplements were ; to prevent illness and to treat illness' and ' to recover from fatigue and to give me energy' The main reason for not-taking was 'Because I am Healthy' 3) The factors influencing on taking supplements were sex marital status disease exercise recognition of knowledge and health-consciousness. When the confounders of health-conscious-ness recognition of knowledge and self-estimated score were controlled threr were significant correlations between health-consciousness and taking-supplements.

• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
• /
• v.7 no.1
• /
• pp.1-9
• /
• 1990

This paper discusses a new perspective in health approach and the effect of health life on health status, and suggests some points to be improved in the establishment of health policies hereafter. Today's health problems changed from the acute epidemic diseases caused by simple factor to the multifactorial chronic diseases. Therefore, the health approach tries the holistic health approach, that is, the integrative approach by the interdisciplinary cooperation. With the advent of holistic health and holistic medicine in 1970's, the behavioral medicine was born in 1977, which is the interdisciplinary field concerned with the development and integration of behavioral and biomedical science knowledge and techniques relevent to prevention, diagnosis and treatment. As a means to the reducement of the unnecessary medical utilization and medical expense, the medical self care and self-help movement is well under way in the countries of America, England, and Canada, in which lay persons are encouraged to actively function for themselves to prevent, detect and treat common illnesses and to promote positive health habits through the health activation programs such as The Course for Activated Patients and The Health Activated Person. This study shows that the individual health life gives great positive effect to his health status with the reducement of medical expense. These above facts suggest that the preventive health programs such as health education should be developed and strengthened instead of medical care-oriented health policy.

• Journal of Home Health Care Nursing
• /
• v.25 no.2
• /
• pp.209-218
• /
• 2018

Purpose: This study is to identify the health promoting behaviors, health belief, and self-efficacy of visiting nurses working for the Health Visiting Project in Seoul and to determine the predictors of influencing health promoting behaviors. Methods: Data were collected from an online survey of 496 visiting nurses form 25 districts in Seoul. Using SPSS ver. 24, the study performed descriptive statistics, t-test, one-way ANOVA, correlations, and stepwise multiple regression. Results: The mean scores for health promoting behaviors and self-efficacy were slightly higher than that of the median, whereas health belief showed in the median. The factors influencing health promoting behavior were perceived barriers, perceived sensitivity, self-efficacy, and age. These variables explained 36.0% of health promoting behaviors(F=60.62, p<.05). Conclusion: To prevent illness and to promote the health of the population, the visiting nurse mainly performs health screening, health education and counseling. To fulfill these responsibilities, the visiting nurse should be healthy and perform health promoting behaviors well, effectively serving as a model for their clients. Most of the visiting nurses were middle-aged, thus, it is necessary to strengthen health promotion activities that manage physical and psychological health at the individual level.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
• /
• v.48 no.2
• /
• pp.116-122
• /
• 2022

Background: The recent COVID-19 pandemic is one of the worst disease outbreaks of the 21th century. Due to a lack of reliable antiviral therapeutics, wearing face masks is recommended to prevent airborne infection originating from virus-contaminated bioaerosols. Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate the filtration efficiencies of face masks that are commercially available in South Korea for a biological aerosol of Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) and murine coronavirus, a well-known surrogate for human coronaviruses. Methods: We collected six different kinds of commercial masks: two Korea Filter (KF)94 (KF94-1, KF94-2) masks, one surgical (Surgical-1) mask, one anti-droplet (KF-AD-1) mask, and two dust (Dust-1, Dust-2) face masks. S. aureus (ATCC 6538), a well-performing test bacteria and murine coronavirus (ATCC VR-764) were prepared under a suitable culture condition. Then, a mask biological filtration tester was used to examine the microbial filtration efficiencies of masks. Test microorganisms were quantitatively measured via cultivation methods and microbial filtration efficiencies were calculated appropriately. Results: All face masks showed over 99.6% filtration efficiency for S. aureus or murine coronavirus. There were no significant differences among the bacterial filtration efficiencies of the face masks. KF94-1 (99.97±0.08%) and Dust-1 mask (99.97±0.07%) showed the highest (over 99.9%) filtration efficiency for murine coronavirus. KF94-1 or Dust-1 masks showed a significant virus filtration efficiency compared to Surgical-1 mask (p<0.05; Mann-Whitney U test). Conclusions: All the commercially available face masks used in this study can filter S. aureus or murine coronavirus in bioaerosols efficiently, regardless of the mask type. Therefore, our results suggest that wearing a certified face mask is a reliable means to prevent the transmission of infectious airborne diseases via biological aerosols.

• Journal of Korean Public Health Nursing
• /
• v.27 no.3
• /
• pp.578-591
• /
• 2013

Purpose: The purpose of this research was to identify the health behaviors, health status, and utilization patterns of health care institutions for homeless shelter residents as well as to compare these research outcomes between younger and older male homeless shelter residents. Methods: The subjects in this study were 357 homeless shelter residents that were recruited by simple random sampling. Data were collected from August to September 2009. Health behaviors, health status, and utilization patterns of health care institutions were measured using structured questionnaires. Data were analyzed using the Chi square test and Fisher's exact test using SPSS 14.0. Results: Both younger and older male subjects showed unhealthy behaviors, and their health status was lower than that of the Health & Nutrition Examination Survey conducted in 2009. Subjects preferred to utilize national or municipal hospitals as well as pharmacies as opposed to general hospitals, clinics, and public health centers. Conclusion: Differentiated comprehensive health care services and monitoring should be provided to homeless shelter residents based on the needs of each group in order to improve their health status as well as to prevent communicable diseases and complications of chronic diseases.

• Safety and Health at Work
• /
• v.10 no.1
• /
• pp.21-29
• /
• 2019

Background: Promoting healthy lifestyles at work should complement workplace safety programs. This study systematically investigates current states of occupational health and safety (OHS) policy as well as practice in the European Union (EU). Methods: OHS policies of EU member states were categorized as either prevention or health promotion provisions using a manifest content analysis. Policy rankings were then created for each prevention and promotion. Rankings compared eight indicators from the European Survey of Enterprises on New and Emerging Risks-2 data on prevention and promotion practices for each member state using Chi-square and probit regression analyses. Results: Overall, 73.1% of EU establishments take preventive measures against direct physical harm, and about 35.4% take measures to prevent psychosocial risks. Merely 29.5% have measures to promote health. Weak and inconsistent links between OHS policy and practice indicators were identified. Conclusion: National OHS policies evidently concentrate on prevention while compliance with health and safety practices is relatively low. Psychosocial risks are often addressed in national policy but not implemented by institutions. Current risk assessment methods are outdated and often lack psychosocial indicators. Health promotion at work is rare in policy and practice, and its interpretation remains preventive. Member states need to adopt policies that actively improve health and well-being at the workplace.