• Health Policy and Management
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.72-109
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• 1999

This study is conducted to investigate the current status on the utilization of health care and plan for solving this problem. The claims data of the fiscal tear 1995 obtained from the regional health insurance society are used for the study. The main findings of the study are summarized as follows. Indexes(The Extremal Quotient(EQ), coefficients of variance(CV's))which represent the regional difference in the admission rate of the tertiary medical diagnosis group report that there is difference in quantity and quality of utilization of health care. The admission rate is lower in the big city areas, Kyoungkido, Kangwondo and Chunlapukdo. Even after age-sex adjustment, the admission rate is still low in Kangwondo, Chunlapukdo and Kyoungsangpukdo. The big city areas tend to have higher rates in the expenses per claim, hospital days per claim, and daily expenses but the rates are still low in some area in Kangwondo, Chunlanamdo and Kyoungsangpukdo. This result remains as same after age-sex adjustment. There is a large regional difference in average utilization rate for the tertiary hospital of the tertiary medical diagnosis group: 57.2%(SD 11.53). The utilization rates for the tertiary hospital in their large catchment area are 96.34%, 83.19% and 73.22% in each Kyoungin, Kyoungnam and Kyoungpuk areas whereas it is lower in a Chungpuk and Chungnam areas. The regional differences of health care utilization of the tertiary medical diagnosis group gave some relationships with their geographical characteristics such as socio-economic characteristics and supply factors of medical services. It is important that many medical policies should be developed in order to minimize and balance out the regional differences of health care utilization. The service allocation policy should include the reconstruction of manpower policy, developing the resource allocating formula, finding the self-sufficient catchment area and reforcing of public health services. Moreover, in order to achieve the balanced development by region, they should investigate and consider each county's microscopic properties under the consistent macrocopic policy. The further studies to find causes of regional difference are needed.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.355-365
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• 2020

Background: This study is aimed to verify individual and regional-level factors affecting the depression of Koreans and to develop social programs for improving the depressive status. Methods: This study used individual-level variables from the Korean Community Health Survey (2018) and used the e-regional index of the Korean Statistical Information Service as the regional-level variable. A multi-level logistic regression was executed to identify individual and regional-level variables that were expected to affect the extent of depressive symptoms and to draw the receiver operating characteristic curve to compare the volume of impact between variables from both levels. Results: The results of the multi-level logistic regression analysis in regards to individual-level factors showed that older age, female gender, a lower income level, a lower education level, not having a spouse, the practice of walking, the consumption of breakfast higher levels of stress, and having high blood pressure or diabetes were associated with a greater increase in depressive symptoms. In terms of regional factors, areas with fewer cultural facilities and fewer car registration had higher levels of depressive symptoms. The comparison of area under the curve showed that individual factors had a greater influence than regional factors. Conclusion: This study showed that while both, individual and regional-level factors affect depression, the influence of the latter was relatively weaker as compared to the first. In this sense, it is necessary to develop programs focused on the individual, such as social prescribing at the local or community-level, rather than the city and nation-level approach that are currently prevalent.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.112-134
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• 1998

The purpose of this study is to analyze the community participation in regional health planning by using the operational definition of participation channels, and to find out the significant variables of community participation channel which are highly related to the scores of regional health plan. The channels we adopted for the study are recommended in the guidebook for regional health planning. They are performing residents' helath survey, submitting written agreement of publics, holding public hearings, putting publicnotice, conducting community health committee meeting, submitting opinion of chambers and Mayors, and operating task-force for planning. We analyzed the selected data of 8 community participation channels, which were submitted by 141 rural health centers for the pursuit of governmental subsidy in 1997. The major findings of this study are as follows; 1. In the process of regional health planning, 88.7% of rural community health centers have performed the residents' health survey, 14.9% submitted written agreement of publics, 11.3% held public hearings, 39.0% put public notice, 46.8% conducting community health committee meeting, 48.9% submitted opinion of chambers, 61.7% submitted opinion of Mayors and 25.5% operated task-force for planning. The result shows that most of community participation channels have been utilized at very low rates, except the residents' health survey. 2. We have analyzed the impact of these community participation channels on the regional health plan scores. In the multiple regression model, we set the regional health plan score as the dependent variable., and the use of participation channels as the idependent variables(1 if the channels are used, 0 otherwise). Finally, the regression analyses show that two channel variables, opinion of chambers and public notice, were the significant positive channel variables on the score of community health plan.

• Korean journal of food and cookery science
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.734-744
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• 2016

Purpose: This study investigated the preference and awareness of consumers residing in the capital area with respect to South and North Korean regional cuisine to provide baseline data for developing effective commercialization strategies. Methods: This survey was conducted among adults over the age of 19 years who were residing in Seoul and Gyeonggi province area, and data analysis was performed using SPSS WIN 18.0. Results: Analysis of the survey participants' preference for South and North Korean regional cuisine showed that Hwanghae province had the highest preference by $4.35{\pm}1.72$ points, whereas Gangwon province had the lowest preference by $3.75{\pm}0.66$ points. Factorial analysis on general characteristics of Korean regional cuisine resulted in 2 factors - 'locality' and 'health'. Cluster analysis showed that participants could be sorted into two clusters by their awareness of Korean regional cuisine - 'the lower cognitive group' and 'the higher cognitive group'. Cluster analysis on the tourism commercialization strategy for Korean regional cuisines showed that 'the higher cognitive group' had significantly higher awareness regarding the following 3 items: 'merchandising strategy', 'popularization strategy' and 'marketing strategy' (p<0.001). Cluster analysis of the world commercialization strategy showed that 'the higher cognitive group' had significantly higher awareness regarding all items of the 'R&D support strategy' and 'Food culture promotion strategy' categories than the 'the lower cognitive group' (p<0.01). Conclusion: Popularization strategies such as value perception based on the well-being concept, and standardization of recipes; merchandising strategies based on storytelling; and food and culture promotional strategies such as Korean cooking classes and food tasting events, were rated as effective commercialization strategies to increase the popularity of Korean regional cuisine.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.100-111
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• 2020

Background: Few studies have examined the performance of the public long-term care insurance (LTCI) from the perspective of geographic equity. This study investigated regional variations and associated factors in the supply and utilization of nursing home care within and also between Japan and Korea. Methods: A comparative dataset was developed by extracting data from 2013-2015 LTCI statistics yearbooks and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development regional statistics, as well as other comparable data in Japan and Korea. The unit of analysis was the prefecture in Japan and the province in Korea. We computed variation indices and conducted regression analyses for regional variations within each country and decomposition analyses to examine the variations between the countries. Results: The overall regional supply and use of nursing home care were higher in Japan, but the regional variations in Korea were larger than in Japan. In both countries, the nursing home supply was negatively associated with the proportion of older people with independent living. Nursing home use was also negatively associated with the supply of hospital beds and home care agencies in Korea; the relationship was the opposite in Japan, however. The country-based differences were more likely to be explained by differences in the distributions of the variables included in the analytical model than country-specific characteristics. Conclusion: Regional-level nursing home supply and use were unequal in both countries, and the contributing factors were not the same. Policy efforts are needed to advance regional equality in long-term care (LTC) and collaboration between health and LTC institutions for frail older people, especially in Korea.

• The Korean Journal of Health Service Management
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.147-155
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• 2014

The objective of the study was to analyze the regional variance of late preterm birth (LPT: 34-36 weeks) by analyzing 2008-2012 birth certificated data of seven metropolitan cities (536,984 births: primiparous singleton birth) from Korea Statistics. The odds ratio and 95% confidence intervals were calculated from multinominal logistic regression analyses to describe the regional variance of LPT adjusted for maternal and infantile variables. The highest incidence of LPT rate by region were observed in Ulsan metropolitan city (3.7 percent), and the lowest in Deajon metropolitan city (3.1 percent). After adjustment by logistic regression for infantile sex, maternal variables, there was a significant increase in the risk of late preterm birth in Ulsan metropolitan city (odds ratio: 1.21) as compared with the incidence of LPT in Deajon metropolitan city. The odds ratio of LPT by region were 1.17 in Daegu metropolitan city, 1.13 Busan metropolitan city, and 1.12 in Incheon metropolitan city. More research is required to understand the risk factors for late preterm birth in this area including socio-demographic factors, medical factors, and regional and environmental factors.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.399-408
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• 2020

Background: The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of the regional characteristics on the accessibility of emergency care and the impact of emergency medical accessibility on the patients' prognosis and the emergency medical expenditure. Methods: This study used the 13th beta version 1.6 annual data of Korea Health Panel and the statistics from the Korean Statistical Information Service. The sample included 8,119 patients who visited the emergency centers between year 2013 and 2017. The arrival time, which indicated medical access, was used as dependent variable for multi-level analysis. For ordinal logistic regression and multiple regression, the arrival time was used as independent variable while patients' prognosis and emergency medical expenditure were used as dependent variables. Results: The results for the multi-level analysis in both the individual and regional variables showed that as the number of emergency medical institutions per 100 km² area increased, the time required to reach emergency centers significantly decreased. Ordinal logistic regression and multiple regression results showed that as the arrival time increased, the patients' prognosis significantly worsened and the emergency medical expenses significantly increased. Conclusion: In conclusion, the access to emergency care was affected by regional characteristics and affected patient outcomes and emergency medical expenditure.

• Journal of Agricultural Extension & Community Development
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.333-344
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• 2015

The purpose of this study was to assume suitable cultivation areas by items and expectably suitable cultivation areas through coefficient of specialization and spatial concentration analysis, and suggested regional specialized items discovered by this research and regional specialized business management plans & development directions. This study has monitored changing aspects of spatial distribution of suitable cultivation areas in stockbreeding items from 2000 to 2010 by applying methods of location quotient(LQ), a multiple model, and etc, and predicted changing aspects of suitable cultivation areas from 2015 to 2020. As the result of analysis, I found that there were specialized items which were spatially concentrated and that there were hot-spots which were focused on some areas by items. Additionally, there were suitable cultivation areas which remained stable or changed by them. To discover specialized items and to develop businesses, I have suggested that it is necessary to ensure business project's feasibility including the present conditions, circumstances & potential of specialized items, and etc., and to secure business competitiveness including technology exchange, production cost curtailment, business management based on consumer's needs and building systematic data about achievement and etc.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.99-119
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• 2007

In recent years, many of medical institution have reinforced educations for their employees aiming to secure competitiveness and to achieve higher performances. In an effort to actively response to the fast changing environment in the medical industry, the Ministry of Health and Welfare has implemented "Innovation and Service promotion" educations for employees of 34 regional medical institutions and 6 Red Cross hospitals. In this regards, the effect of the educations to change employees' mind for innovation and services and its results need to be evaluated. This study conducted surveys asking participants of the 2006 Education for Innovation of Regional Public Hospital Employees and Service Promotion and synthetically analyzes the effect of the education on their mind for services compare to their mind before the education. As a result, more them 92% of participants say that they are satisfied with the education, and many more participants agreed the effect of the education to change their mind for services. Under this circumstance, after the educations participants change more positively on "their mind for innovative services" and "their service skills in practice".

• Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.154-167
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• 1997

This survey research investigates how the small and medium industries in Pusan area have considered quality management activities in an effort to strengthen their competitive power. It first develops a set of significant questionnaires anddistributes them to a select group of small and medium regional industries. The survey results are analyzed based on both Cronbach's Alpha value and $x^2$ test. This study shows that the awareness level of quality management varies according to the type of industrial field. This study also proposes that a, pp.opriate quality management strategies are necessary for the regional industries in pusan.