• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.51-67
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• 2008

The study analyzes divorce rates in Korea and makes suggestions for the future research of divorce rates. Based on the data from Korea Statistical Information System (KOSIS) of the National Statistics Organization, trends for divorce rates change and the relations between divorce rates and macro environmental factors are analyzed. Macro environmental factors include socioeconomic factors such as, Korean War, Vietnam War, oil shock, IMP economic crisis and gross national income (GNI), whereas demographical factors include population structure, rates of female labor participation, and geographical location. The principle characteristics of divorce rates are as follows: 1) the Crude divorce rates (CDR) and the number of divorced had been increased from 1970 to 2004, then the trend changed to a decrease; 2) the slope of the change were the highest during 1998 to 2004 after the IMP economic crisis. The relations between socioeconomic factors are as follows: 1) during the war there was a small increase of CDR for a short period of time; 2) the economic crisis of the nation tend to increase the CDR, while the IMP economic crisis had a strong impact on an increase of CDR because of the interaction effect among the population structure, women's sex role changes as well as the level of standard of living. The increase in CDR from 1990 to 2000 can be explained partly by the population of baby Boomers passing through their marriage and divorce process. The number of population residing in the rural area and the middle class households, and the mobility of population also had an impact on the divorce rates changes. The recommendations for the future research were as follows: 1) the need to develop new divorce statistics that are based on a marriage cohort or a birth cohort because family behavior is a mixture of personal, social and political responses, and because CDR is not an accurate measure of divorce rate since it was influenced by population structure; 2) the need to include micro personal factors as well as macro social factors in a model to find an interaction effect between those variables.

• Journal of Korean society of Dental Hygiene
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.565-575
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• 2019

Objectives: In this study, both subjective and objective levels of oral health were used to identify the relationship between oral health inequalities. Methods: Korean National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey data from 2013 to 2015 were combined to create an analysis plan. Oral health questions categorized as subjective oral health conditions and oral health-related diseases used dental tissue disease status as data measured by the Community Periodical Index(CPI) and decayed, missing, filled teeth(DMFT) experience. Other data on oral health behaviors such as toothache experience, the frequency of toothbrush use, chewing problems, oral examination status, and unmet dental care needs were classified and analyzed according to the socioeconomic level. Data were analyzed using frequency and cross analyses, and the statistical significance level was set at 0.05. Results: It was found that higher the economic and educational level, better was the subjective oral health, lower the CPI, lower the experience of toothache, higher the frequency of toothbrush use, lower the number of people having chewing problems, and higher the frequency of oral checkups. Conclusions: Oral health inequality exists among social classes. It is suggested that continuous research and efforts be carried out to promote oral health while considering socioeconomic and educational levels. Further, active government efforts will be needed to address polarization by social class.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.317-327
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• 2012

The purpose of present study was to observe the path and influencing effects between socioeconomic class (SEC), health practices and self-rated health(SRH) by the age bracket. The subjects were 4,987 adults over 25 years old who participated in the 2008 Korean National Examination Health and Nutrition Survey and could be classified into SEC in terms of the three characteristics: education, income and occupation. Path analysis was conducted with the effects of health behaviors execution on the differences in SRH, and the complex samples analysis executed by chi-square test, t-test, ANOVA. As the result, lower SRH level paralleled with the lower SEC, and more health behaviors had differed by SEC in the younger and middle aged group. The lower SEC, the lower SRH: non-smoking and weight control for younger women and exercise for aged men had indirect effects as parameters. In conclusion, when planning a health promotion program, to select the correct target populations with consideration of the age bracket, gender and SEC and to establish tailored contents fit for each of the population would be important.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.76-86
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• 2012

The purpose of this study is to investigate the environmental equity of the accessibility to public transportation services in the city of Daegu. The 2005 census data as well as bus stop and subway station datasets were integrated for building the GIS database. Public transportation service areas were then identified by a coverage method. Mann Whitney U test was used for statistically comparing the socioeconomic characteristics over different levels of access to the public transportation services. Both Dong-gu, Suseong-gu, Dalseo-gu, and Buk-gu located outside of the city had worse accessibility than others while Jung-gu, Seo-gu, and Nam-gu had better accessibility than others. There appeared no environmental inequity pattern in terms of the percentages of men, women, and teenagers over the city of Daegu whereas there existed some environmental inequity pattern in terms of the percentages of people above the age of 65 and people below poverty line. This environmental inequity pattern would be caused by some factors. Firstly, the lower income class has tended to reside in the declined or blighted areas far away from public transportation facilities since this class can not afford to pay expensive rents and land prices around the main roads with higher accessibility. Many old people belonging to the lower income class also reside in the declined or blighted areas. Secondly, there has been no law to locate bus stops and subway stations considering residents' socioeconomic characteristics and the spatial distribution of public transportation facilities has been not managed systematically by the city government. This research would shed insight on building the public transportation policy to locate bus stops and subway stations and to select the routes of buses and subways considering the spatial distribution of residents' socioeconomic characteristics.

• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.131-149
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• 2012

This study examined the effect of parental socioeconomic position on the association between birth outcomes and infant mortality in early and late 2000's. Linked Birth and Infant Death data sets from 2001 to 2003 (T1) and from 2006 to 2008 (T2), provided by the Korea National Statistical Office, were used for analysis. Birth outcomes were categorized into four groups: normal term, small-for-gestational age (SGA), large-for-gestational age (LGA) and intrauterine growth retardation (IUGR). Infant death was defined as the death of a live-born child under one year of age; indicators of parental socioeconomic position were limited to parental education and occupation. The results showed that T2 infant mortality hazard ratios of SGA and IUGR have increased compared to T1. Particularly, preterm and low birth weight babies with shorter gestational age and lighter birth weight than T1 have elevated in T2, possibly indicating that population quality might be continuously aggravated. Moreover, the effect of maternal age on infant mortality has disappeared, rather that of parents' socioeconomic position has increased during the periods, which entailed growing disparities in infant mortality by their social class. Further studies should be therefore done to estimate the effect of parental socioeconomic position on the relationship between birth outcomes and infant mortality in the near future.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.1-12
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• 2002

Objective : To estimate the socioeconomic costs of obesity in Korea,1998. Methods : The 1998 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey(1998 NHNES) data was used and 10,880 persons who had taken health examinations were selected for study. Essential hypertension, NIDDM(non insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus), dyslipidemia, osteoarthritis, coronary heart disease, stroke were included as obesity related disease. The data of direct costs of obesity was obtained from the National Federation of Medical Insurance. The category of indirect costs was the loss of productivity caused by premature death and admission, time costs, traffic costs, nursing fees due to obesity. Multiple logistic regression model was developed to estimate prevalence odds ratio by obesity class adjusted demographic and socio-ecnomic factors and calculate PAF(Population Attributable Fraction) of obesity on obesity related disease. And we finally calculated the socioeconomic costs of obesity in relation to BMI with PAF. Results : The direct costs of obesity were 2,126 billion${\sim}965$ billion Won in considering out of pocket payment to uninsured services, and the indirect costs of obesity were 2,099 billion${\sim}1,086$ billion Won. Consequently, in considering out of pocket payment to uninsured services, the socioeconomic costs of obesity were 4.225 billion${\sim}2,050$ billion Won, which corresponded to about $0.094%{\sim}0.046%$ of GDP and $1.88%{\sim}0.91$ of total health care costs in Korea. Conclusions : Obesity represents a major health problem with significant economic implications for the society. This results are conservative estimates as far as all obesity related disease and all health care and indirect costs were not included due to missing information. further studies are needed to caculate socioeconomic costs of obesity more exactly.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.131-148
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• 1997

The purpose of this study was to develop criterion scores for the Korean version of the Attachment Q-set. It further examined distribution of security of attachment scores of Korean infants and differences in attachment scores by the cultural background. The criterion scores of attachment security were developed by 8 judges who are knowledgable in attachment theory and research. They used the Q-set to describe behavior characteristics of ideally secure infants of 12 and 36 months of age. Distribution of the attachment scores was analyzed with 191 infants, compiled from 4 studies including infants selected for this study. The attachment security criterion scores developed for Korean infants correlated highly with the Waters' criterion scores (1987) for American infants, .90 for 12 months and .88 for 36 months of age. Correlations between attachment scores developed for 12-and 36-month-olds was .89. The attachment security scores of the Korean version was a little higher and more negatively skewed than scores calculated using the American criterion. There were significant differences in the security of attachment scores by socioeconomic background of the infants, but not with employment status of the mothers. Infants of nonemployed middle class mothers had significantly higher security of attachment scores than infants of nonemployed lower class mothers. Infants from lower class families had higher "difficulty" scores, and "enjoying physical contact" scores were higher among infants from the middle class.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.1371-1376
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• 2012

Background: Economic status is known to be directly or indirectly related to cancer incidence since it affects accessibility to health-related social resources, preventive medical checkups, and lifestyle. This study investigates the relationship between cancer incidence and family income in Korea. Methods:Using the Korean National Health Insurance cancer registration data in 2009, the relationship between their family income class and cancer risk was analyzed. The age-standardized incidence rates of the major cancers were calculated for men and women separately. After adjusting for age, residential area, and number of family members, cancer risks for major cancers according to family income class were estimated using a logistic regression model. Results: In men, the risk of stomach cancer for Income Class 5 (lowest) was 1.12 times (95% CI 1.02-1.23) higher than that of Income Class 1 (highest), for lung cancer 1.61 times (95% CI 1.43-1.81) higher, for liver cancer 1.22 times (95% CI 1.08-1.37) higher, and for rectal cancer 1.37 times higher (95% CI 1.18-1.59). In women, the risk of stomach cancer for Income Class 5 was 1.22 times higher (95% CI 1.08-1.37) than that for Income Class 1, while for cervical cancer it was 2.47 times higher (95% CI 2.08-2.94). In contrast, in men, Income Class 1 showed a higher risk of thyroid cancer and prostate cancer than that of Income Class 5, while, in women the same was the case for thyroid cancer. Conclusions: The results show the relationship between family income and cancer risk differs according to type of cancer.

• Human Ecology Research
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• v.58 no.4
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• pp.585-599
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• 2020

This study investigated children's interests in learning English, affected by educational activities in and out of institutes, and mothers' perceptions regarding early childhood English education. We recruited, 253 mothers of 3- to 5-year-old children in either general kindergartens or English immersion institutes. They answered questions on socioeconomic status, perceived interest in English by their children, their perceptions regarding early childhood English education, and English education outside institutes. In addition, 42 English teachers provided information within institutes such as class time per week, teacher-pupil rate, and language use policy during class. The collected data were analyzed through SPSS 22 for frequency analysis, descriptive statistics, independent t-test, and hierarchical multiple regression analysis. The major findings are as follows. First, the two groups were in distinct learning environment. Second, mothers' perceptions and outside-institute activities were significantly different between the two groups. Third, the English interests of children at both institutes were influenced by mothers' worries and at-home English interactions. Fourth, education within institutes did not affect both group's English interests. Fifth, private education and socioeconomic status did not affect both group's English interests. Lastly, only the children's interests in English immersion institutes were affected by gender and mother's perceived necessities. Focusing children's interests, this study helps in understanding young children's affective aspects regarding learning English. The findings are expected to be a guideline for each home and institute to increase children's interest in learning English.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.269-273
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• 2012

We aimed to estimate the prevalence of high-risk human papillomavirus (HPV) infections in women of high socioeconomic status (SES) in Seoul, Republic of Korea and to identify risk factors. This study included 13,386 women visiting a prestigious healthcare center located in Seoul between 2003 and 2008. High-risk HPV infections were detected in 994 (7%) and the age-standardized prevalence was 8%. Abnormal Pap smear results ${\geq}$ atypical squamous cells of unknown significance (ASCUS) were observed in 280 of 12,080 women (2%). Based on univariate analysis, age, level of education and number of children were associated with high-risk HPV infections. Based on multivariate analysis, age and high-risk HPV infections had an inverse relationship. In women with high SES in Seoul, the prevalence of high-risk HPV infection was 7% and the age-standardized prevalence was 8%. Age was a strong determinant of high-risk HPV infection.