• Journal of Korean Ophthalmic Optics Society
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.293-297
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• 2010

Purpose: The aim of the current study was to compare body mass index (BMI) with waist circumference (WC) as a predictor of elevated intraocular pressure (IOP). Methods: The subjects were consisted of 458 adults, aged 20 year or above, of one community in Kyunggi-do. Mean IOPs were stratified jointly for BMI and WC tertiles. Multi-variate linear regression analysis was also used to compare between BMI and WC. Results: Although any BMI tertiles were not associated with IOP within each tertile of WC, WC tertiles was significantly related to elevation of IOP within the third BMI tertile (${\geq}24.9kg/m^2$). After adjusting for age and sex, only WC showed significant association with IOP. In additional adjustment for lifestyle variables, both BMI and WC were significantly associated with elevation of IOP. However, the results showed the stronger association of IOP with WC than BMI, whether they were adjusted by age and sex or additionally lifestyle variables. Conclusions: These data showed that BMI and WC were positively associated with IOP. However, WC appeared to be a better indicator for higher IOP than BMI.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.358-374
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• 2008

This study examines whether and how ages of child affect accessibility experiences of women and men differently. Space-time accessibility measures based on Time-geographic framework with activity-travel diary datasets in Portland Metro, US were calculated using GIS-based geocomputation, and spatial-temporal patterns of accessibility of dual-earner couples by ages of their youngest child were compared. The results are as follows. (1) Although more women than men work part-time, which would render women more spatial-temporal autonomy, accessibility levels of women are not higher than men's. It implies that there exists another constraint placed on women which largely stems from gender inequality. (2) It is distinctively women with child under age 6 of which accessibility spaces are found to be restricted doser to home compared to men. Women with no child or with child aged over 6, however, show more or less similar spatial-temporal patterns of accessibility with men's which are quite unvarying regardless of parental status and their child age. Women's accessibility experiences characterized by spatial-temporal entrapment, thus, can be seen as problems associated with gender rather than sex. (3) Intensified spatial-temporal entrapment of women with young child are associated with the significant spatial pegs shaping their accessibility spaces, which are located much closer to home compared to men's: workplaces and child's daycare centers.

• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.125-139
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• 1993

Korea has successfully achieved a lowered fertility level owing to the strong population control policy and effective family planning program. Along with fertility decline and decreased number of children in family, average number of household members has decreased and nontraditional households such as one person household and households composed of unrelated individuals have prolifirated, even though the absolute number of them are found minimal in Korea. However in recent years several data and survey results suggest that one person households are gradually in the increasing trend. The study aimed at investigating the real state of one person households in Korea and next analyzing the proportional distribution of one person households by a few socioeconomic characteristics, thus providing basic for eatablishing far-singhted population and social welfare policy in the future. Korea has experienced high growth rate of economy through government-led development plans starting from the 1960s. During the past three decades, Korea has shifted from the agricultural state to the industrialized one. In compliance with the economic growth, urbanization and industrialization have brought about rural-to-urban migration and a great bulk of young population migrated to urban areas, who are seeking for educational and job opportunities. Korean society has also been under drastic change in every aspect of life involving norms, tradition, and attitude, etc. Therefore, in spite of the prejudice on 'living alone' still remaining, young people gradually leave parents and home, and further form nontraditional households in urban areas. Current increase in the number of one person households is partly attributable to the increase in high female educational attainment and female participation in economic activities. As the industrial structure in Korea changes from primary into secondary and tertiary industries, job opportunities for service/sales and manufacturing are opened to young female labor force in the process of industrialization. Contrary to the formation of one person households by young people, the aged single households are composed when children in family leave one by one because of marriage, education, employment. In particular, a higher proportion of aged female single households occur in rural areas due to the mortality difference by sex. Based on the data released form the 1990 Population and Housing Census and National Fertility and Family Health Survey in 1985 and 1991, the study tried to examine the state of one person households in Korea. According to Census data, the number of one person households increased to 1, 021, 000 in 1990, comprising 9.0 percent of total households. And the survey reveal that among total 11, 540 households, 8.0 percent, 923 households, are composed of one person households. Generally, the proportion of female single households is greater than that of male ones, and a big proportion of one person households is concentrated in the 25-34 age bracket in urban areas and 65 years and more in rural areas. It is shown than one person householders in urban areas have higher educational attainment with 59.2 percent high schooling and over in 1991, Job seeking proved to be the main reason for leaving home and forming one person households. The number of young female single households with higher education and economic self-reliance are found nil and the study did not allow to analyze the causal realtionship between female education and employment and one person household formation. However more research and deep analysis on the causal facors on one person household formation using statistical method are believed to be necessary.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.30 no.2 s.57
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• pp.293-307
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• 1997

In Korea, sudden deaths of middle-aged and older male workers who are the responsible persons at home as well as workplace, have aroused social concern. Besides, U. N. has reported recently that mortality of Korea male in 40-50's was one of the highest among newly developed countries in 1992. Not much is, however, known about the nature of the work contributing to the mortality of different groups of workers. Therefore, this study was done to examine mortality of public servants, comprising about 5% of all the employed in Korea, according to their job titles and grades. The datas of 1753 official deaths, comprised 323 (only disease-oriented deaths) applicants of survivors' compensation, were used to examine age-adjusted Standardized Mortality Ratios(SMRs) according to their job titles, grades, tenures and cause of deaths. Controlling age and sex difference was conducted using 26,950,481 general population, 95,340 general deaths and 864,560 working public servants. All the groups were aged 20-64, who were being observed January - December in 1993, at the same time. Results and discussions are as follows. 1. SMRs standardized by general population was significantly low (SMR 44.9 CI 42.8-52.7) for all job titlses. Of public servants, 90.0% was graduated from high school, although 17.5% in general population. The distinction of social status such a education may produce a strong healthy worker effect. Besides, SMRs for different tenure groups showed a steady increase as tenure increases. This suggests that the magnitude of healthy-worker effect may be greater with increasing tenures. 2. SMRs standardized by own public servants was significantly elevated for work-men(SMR 121.0, CI 110.2-132.6) in solitue. When SMRs for different grade, of work-men was examined, 9th(SMR 124.2, CI 104.4-146.7) and 10th(SMR 137.9 CI 120.8-156.8)grade, lower grade in workmen, showed significantly elevated SMRs. Of workmen, 57.0% were graduated from high school and 50.1% in 9th grade, as well. These mean that low economic states made up social class, education may increase mortality rate. 3. Of SMRs according to all causes of death, only policemen on 'cause of death related hypertensive disease'(SMR 282.5, CI 121.6-556.7) was significantly high except for' cause of death related other signs, symptoms and ill-defined conditions'. 4. When SMRs on cause of death related hypertensive disease for different grade of policemen was examined, senior policemen(SMR 241.9), in charge of the front service, showed elevated SMR, in spite of statistical no significance. Especially, the working hour of senior policemen is quite long and also the work schedule is even more irregular for policemen. The results of this study showed that mortality for different jobs differed, and it differed also for different grades in the same job. This difference in mortality may reflect the difference in the nature of job contents, and further studies are warranted to elucidate which job characteristics are responsible.

• Journal of Technologic Dentistry
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.291-302
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• 2012

Purpose: It is to survey old men's utilization status of dental clinic and temporary-binding dentures and then to provide basic data to make a program for manufacturing old men's dentures and their teeth health education. Methods: Random selection was made on old men living in Daejeon and Chungnam, and a survey was conducted from April 15 to May 20, 2011. 500 questionnaires were distributed and 420 questionnaires were collected. Using spss 18.0 program, final analysis was made on 363 questionnaires except for 57 questionnaires which had missing value or showed some doubts about the unreliability. Results: 1. With respect to number of natural teeth as per the age, the upper/lower jaws had meaningful differences (P<.001), which means that the older the person is, the smaller number of natural teeth is. In the meantime, there was no meaningful difference according to sex. 2. With respect to kind of prosthetics installed in a mouth as per the age, there was meaningful difference in the upper jaws (P<.05) but there was no meaningful difference in the lower jaws. It was found out that the older the persons are, the more they use removable dentures while the younger the persons are, the more they use fixed partial dentures. 3. With respect to mouth health condition recognized by oneself, it showed bad (44.4%) and good (10.3%),which means recognition as bad is greater, and the age when prosthetics were first used is dispersed variously from below 40 to over 70. 4. Dental care institutions which they mainly used are hospital and clinics (91.5%), and 66.4% of them visited dental clinics lately. Preferential treatment if they go to dentists is as follows in the order of prosthetics (33.9%), gum treatment (24.2%) and pain treatment (14.9%). 5. 68.4% of them revisited dentists after installation of dentures and the reason for revisit is as follows in the order of poorly fitted dentures (35.1%), painful gum 25.9%, regular check-up 25.4% and difficult chewing 9.6%. Conclusion: As our country enters into an aging society, mouth health problem of old men has come to a serious issue, and therefore, a survey was conducted on some old men with respect to their utilization status of dental clinic and removable dentures in order to provide basic data for improvement of quality of their life, maintenance and enhancement of their mouth health. The study result shows that the older they are, the higher the loss rate of teeth as well as needs for prosthetics are, and thus it is thought the study will help to develop mouth health education program which may improve quality of old men's life by recovery of mouth functions declined due to loss of teeth and by regular check-up, education for mouth health control and following-up control of dentures.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.61 no.5
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• pp.135-149
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• 2018

Growth charts are curves or tables that facilitate the visualization of anthropometric parameters, and are widely used as an important indicator when evaluating the growth status of children and adolescents. The latest version of the Korean National Growth Charts released in 2007 has raised concerns regarding the inclusion of data from both breastfed and formula-fed infants, higher body mass index (BMI) values in boys, and smaller 3rd percentile values in height-for-age charts. Thus, new growth charts have been developed to improve the previous version. The 2006 World Health Organization Child Growth Standards, regarded as the standard for breastfed infants and children, were introduced for children aged 0-35 months. For children and adolescents aged 3-18 years, these new growth charts include height-for-age, weight-for-age, BMI-for-age, weight-for-height, and head circumference-for-age charts, and were developed using data obtained in 1997 and 2005. Data sets and exclusion criteria were applied differently for the development of the different growth charts. BMI-for-age charts were adjusted to decrease the 95th percentile values of BMI. Criteria for obesity were simplified and defined as a BMI of ${\geq}95th$ percentile for age and sex. The 3rd percentile values for height-for-age charts were also increased. Additional percentile lines (1st and 99th) and growth charts with standard deviation lines were introduced. 2017 Korean National Growth Charts are recommended for the evaluation of body size and growth of Korean children and adolescents for use in clinics and the public health sector in Korea.

• 한국노년학
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.225-241
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• 2018

Self-driving is meaningful activity for older persons because it enlarges the range of activity and provides opportunities for social participation. Driving is a complex activity that requires integration of physical, cognitive and sensory functions and is influenced by human and psychological factors. Age related functional deterioration affects the driving ability of older drivers. The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors affecting the risk of accidents and driving cessation of elderly drivers through systematic literature review. MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, KoreaMed, Pubmed were used for searching articles published from 2007 to 2017. 'aged', 'aging', 'automobile driving', 'age factors' were used as search terms and 18 articles were finally selected for analysis among 1,458 articles. In result of the study, the most significant effect showed in the physical domain, the driving habit and the performance function. The most frequent used tools evaluated driving habit and the cognitive function. In demographic characteristics, there was a correlation with the driving discontinue according to sex and age. This study emphasizes the necessity of preparing measures for safety driving with elderly. In addition, it suggests the necessity of systematically services such as individual education programs based on various driving cessation related factors of the elderly.

• Journal of Acupuncture Research
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.149-160
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• 2002

Objetive : To evaluate the effect of treatment for Heel Pain by using Bee-venom Acupuncture that is well known for anti-inflamatory effect and function of activating immunine system. Methods : We investigated 32 cases of patient with Heel Pain. From 1th November 2001 to 30th June 2002, 32 cases of patient with Heel Pain treated at the Department of Acupuncture & Moxibustion of Kyung-won University Oriental Hospital were selected for two group. One group was treated by Bee-venom Acupuncture therapy (Bee-venom Acupuncture Group : BAG), the other group was treated by Common Acupuncture therapy (None Bee-venom Acupuncture Group : NBAG). Both group were composed of 16 patients. After treatment, we evaluated the effects per each group. Results : 1. In the distribution by sex & age : 5 cases were male, 11 cases were female in BAG. 10 cases were male, 6 cases were female in NBGA. Forty aged cases were the most in BAG. Thirty aged cases were the most in NBAG. 2. Assessment of treatment by therapeutic frequency : 14 cases(87.5%) were above "Fair" within 6 times in BAG, 7 cases(43.8%) were above "Fair" beyond 10 times. 3. Assessment of treatment : Excellent were 9 cases, Good 5 cases, Fair 2 cases in BAG, Excellent were 2 cases, Good 7 cases, Fair 2 cases, Poor 5 cases in NBAG. Therapeutic effect above "Fair" were 16 cases(100%) in BAG, 11 cases(68.8%) in NBAG. 4. Comparing BAG with NBAG by therapeutic frequency and assessment in Grade II state : 11 cases(91.7%) were above "Good" within 6 times in BGA, 3 cases (57.1%) above "Fair" beyond 10 times. 5. About average frequency of treatment in the distribution of Grade : Grade III was 5.3 times, Grade II 4.0 times in BGA, whereas Grade III 16.0 times, Grade II 8.4 times in NBGA. Conclusions : In the treatment of Heel Pain, the Bee-venom Acupuncture can be regarded as more useful method in the clinical practice, because it has comparatively shorter duration of treatment and is more effective.

• Journal of Yeungnam Medical Science
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.239-247
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• 1992

A clinical analysis was done on 134 cases with bronchial asthma who were admitted to the Department of Pediatrics Yeungnam University from May 1987 to October 1991. The results were as followings; 1) The peak age of bronchial asthma was under 2 years. The sex ratio of male to female was 2.9 : 1. 2) The out-break of bronchial asthma was most common in fall, especially in September. 3) The past history of other allergic diseases were present in 22.4% of patients(30/134 cases), and the previous bronchiolitis in infancy were experienced in 12.7% of patients(17/134 cases). 4) According to the skin test for allergens done by RAST, the most common allergens were Mites and House dust. 5) Eosinophilia(T.E.C>250/min) was found in 29.1% of patients, and elevated IgE level(>200 $IU/m{\ell}$) was found in 63.2% of patients. 6) No significant differences in the serum IgE level were found between male and female patients. No significant differences in the serum IgE level were found between asthma patients with and without other allergic diseases. 7) The serum IgE level of school aged patients was significant higher than that of preschool aged(p<0.01).

• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.24 no.12
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• pp.1249-1259
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• 2023

Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the clinical outcomes and cost-effectiveness of dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) for osteoporosis screening. Materials and Methods: Eligible patients who had and had not undergone DXA screening were identified from among those aged 50 years or older at Kaohsiung Veterans General Hospital, Taiwan. Age, sex, screening year (index year), and Charlson comorbidity index of the DXA and non-DXA groups were matched using inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW) for propensity score analysis. For cost-effectiveness analysis, a societal perspective, 1-year cycle length, 20-year time horizon, and discount rate of 2% per year for both effectiveness and costs were adopted in the incremental cost-effectiveness (ICER) model. Results: The outcome analysis included 10337 patients (female:male, 63.8%:36.2%) who were screened for osteoporosis in southern Taiwan between January 1, 2012, and December 31, 2021. The DXA group had significantly better outcomes than the non-DXA group in terms of fragility fractures (7.6% vs. 12.5%, P < 0.001) and mortality (0.6% vs. 4.3%, P < 0.001). The DXA screening strategy gained an ICER of US$ -2794 per quality-adjusted life year (QALY) relative to the non-DXA at the willingness-to-pay threshold of US$ 33004 (Taiwan's per capita gross domestic product). The ICER after stratifying by ages of 50-59, 60-69, 70-79, and ≥ 80 years were US$ -17815, US$ -26862, US$ -28981, and US$ -34816 per QALY, respectively. Conclusion: Using DXA to screen adults aged 50 years or older for osteoporosis resulted in a reduced incidence of fragility fractures, lower mortality rate, and reduced total costs. Screening for osteoporosis is a cost-saving strategy and its effectiveness increases with age. However, caution is needed when generalizing these cost-effectiveness results to all older populations because the study population consisted mainly of women.