• Journal of Physiology & Pathology in Korean Medicine
• /
• v.24 no.4
• /
• pp.696-701
• /
• 2010

Hepatitis A is acute hepatitis caused by the hepatitis A virus (HAV), HAV is a non-enveloped 27nm, heat-, acid, and ether-resistant RNA virus in the Picornavirus family. HAV is transmitted primarily through fecal-oral route and the incidence rate of hepatitis A is closely related to environmental hygiene and socioeconomic condition. Recent improvements in sanitation, public health policies, and socioeconomic development in South Korea have had great impact on the incidence of hepatitis A, which natural production of antibodies against HAV and the prevalence of HAV antibody has decreased. However, during the past ten years, symptomatic HAV infection substantially increased among juveniles and young adults in their twenties and thirties, and hepatitis A has become one of the most common acute hepatitis. Though there has been no report on treatment of hepatitis A with jaundice by oriental medicine in South Korea, many studies and case reports on treatment of icteric hepatitis of which main symptom is jaundice have been published in other countries. To treat patients diagnosed with hepatitis or suspected cases in oriental medicine hospitals, we need to have concerned about hepatitis A. This report is disease pattern identification in oriental medicine and treatments of 3 patients who were diagnosed with acute hepatitis A and treated in oriental medicine hospital.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
• /
• v.40 no.6
• /
• pp.422-430
• /
• 2007

The socioeconomic inequalities in health have recently become an important public health concern in South Korea, and the issue has gained increasing attention from many South Korean researchers due to the increasing income inequality and Widening social polarization following its economic crisis in the late 1990s. However, despite the mounting literature on health inequalities published in recent years, the history of research on health inequality in South Korea is premature in comparison to the long histories in several Western countries. Understanding the historical background underlying the issue of health inequality research may aid in establishing and accumulating scientifically solid evidence in South Korea. It may also direct the South Korean research community to develop research agendas that are. more politically and academically appropriate for South Korean society. This paper describes the historical development of health inequality research in the West and introduces several important issues contributing to the advancement of health inequality research. Specifically, the major studies conducted before and after the UK Black Report are presented. In addition, the history and current status of health inequality research in South Korea are documented and evaluated. Finally, several research agendas for the quantitative and qualitative improvement of health inequality research in South Korea are proposed.

• Health Policy and Management
• /
• v.20 no.3
• /
• pp.104-122
• /
• 2010

Long-term care insurance has been introduced in Korea a year ago, and we are in a stage requiring to set principles regarding the generosity of coverage and how to gradually extend the coverage. This study empirically analyzes how the long-term care insurance in Korea is operated. Special attention is given to who is the main beneficiary of the long-term care insurance introduction, and what is the factors influencing the elderly's decision to apply for or use long-term care services. Use of a detailed information of individuals' public health insurance and long-term care insurance from administration data made it possible to control for health status, socioeconomic status including family type, housing tenure, income level. Logit models were employed to analyze the effects of various socioeconomic factors on the likelihood of applying and using long-term care services. Also, this study employed a survey questioning whether to ever willing to take other option as a alternative to residential care or home-care and the level of cash benefit for which they are willing to replace the formal care with informal care. The result indicated that although the poorest elderly population groups are in the greatest need for the long-term care service, they are in difficulty using the service due to economic burden. This implies the copayment amount needs to be adjusted in order for the poor elderly group to be able to get the benefit of the long-term care service.

• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
• /
• v.24 no.2
• /
• pp.1-14
• /
• 2007

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate predictors of depression among elderly who have received visiting health services in public health centers. Method: The data has been collected from 678 elderly living in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province during the period from February 21 to June 30 in 2006. The data were collected by individual interview and were analyzed using correlation and multiple regression analysis with the SAS 9.1 program. Result: Among elderly, 73.8% of them showed depression. The elderly with higher level of socioeconomic status (${\beta}=0.136$, p=0.019) and higher level of social support including family support(${\beta}=-0.018$, p<.0001), friend's support(${\beta}=-0.025$, p<.0001) and special person's support (${\beta}=-0.021$, p<.0001) show lower levels of depression. In addition, elderly with perceived good health status (${\beta}=0.119$, p<.0001) feel less depression than those who have poor health condition. Conclusion: These findings suggest that low socioeconomic status and lower level of social support among elderly should be considered to decrease depression. These findings would contribute to health education, designing interventions and program development for appropriate depression management for the elderly.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
• /
• v.10 no.4
• /
• pp.269-279
• /
• 1995

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships of nutritional and social factors among 100 children aged $5{\sim}6$ years. Forty five children (45%) were selected from families with low socioeconomic status, while 55 children (55%) were from those with high socioeconomic status. Cognitive performance of the children was measured by the Draw a man test and the degrees of hyperactivity were assessed by both children's mothers and their teachers using two different Check List (Behavior check list and Conner's rating scale). There were few associations between cognitive performance and nutritional variables. However, levels of hyperactivity were related positively to diversity of food intake and weight percentage for age, and negatively to animal and processed food preferences. These results indicate a possible role of nutrition on psychological development.

• Journal of Korean Society of Rural Planning
• /
• v.28 no.1
• /
• pp.49-55
• /
• 2022

School closures in rural areas is especially relevant because low fertility rate and population aging are common not only in rural but also in urban areas. This paper examined a variety of users' perceptions on welfare facilities using closed rural schools. For this study, the descriptive survey research design was conducted at the EZER located in Kyungsnangbuk-do. The sample size of 200 was selected through convenience sampling and data collection was completed by a self-completion written questionnaires. Main findings are as follows: 1) the level of users' relative satisfaction with welfare facilities using closed rural schools was generally positive, main factor associated with relative satisfaction was facilities and surrounding environment at closed rural schools, 2) socioeconomic usefulness of closed rural schools was also was generally positive, main factors for revitalization were adequate facilities and places, accessible and convenient places, 3) future necessity and willingness for welfare facilities using closed rural schools were overwhelmingly positive, children or youth were revealed as a priority service target. Finally, theses analyses show that a high proportion in the rural welfare sector, especially seemed to have a positive impact on bridging negative gabs between urban and rural in the socioeconomic development and social welfare.

• Journal of Agricultural Extension & Community Development
• /
• v.10 no.1
• /
• pp.77-85
• /
• 2003

Globalization and the WTO agenda have aggravated socioeconomic problem in rural Koreas. People think that agriculture is out-of-data industry and rural areas lose their vitality. The main question is: What will be the future of the rural areas? Rural tourism is perhaps one of the solution that help improve the situation in rural areas. Rural tourism is however a complex notion and difficult to implement. This paper is an exploratory study of rural tourism and its application. The objective of this study is 1) to explore the idea of rural tourism, 2) to analyze the planning process, and 3) to examine the application of rural tourism in Mundangri, as a study case.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
• /
• v.25 no.5
• /
• pp.163-178
• /
• 2004

The hypothesis was tested that children whose families differ in socioeconomic status(SES) and educational level differ in their rates of productive language development because they have different language-learning experiences. Naturalistic interaction between mothers and their children was video taped. Transcripts of these interactions provided the basis for estimating the growth in children's productive vocabularies and properties of maternal speech. The sixty children from age 1 to 3 were selected in Yanji, China. The results show that the high educated mothers' children grew more than the low educated mothers' children in their mean length of utterances. Properties of maternal speech that differed as a function of mother's educational level fully accounted for this difference. Implications of these findings for mechanisms of environmental influence on child development are discussed.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
• /
• v.35 no.2
• /
• pp.143-152
• /
• 2021

It is investigated in this study how the water supply system has been developed in North Korea. Articles published in the Rodong Newspaper (North Korea official newspaper) were mainly reviewed for this purpose. It was found in this study that the development of the water supply system in the North Korea was affected by their socioeconomic situations. Their water supply development was categorized into six groups in this study since the first water supply system built in Pyongyang (1910); Occupation period (1910~1945); Introduction period (1946~1950); Restoration period (1951~1960); Advancement period (1961~1970); New village period (1971~1974); Depression period (1974~).

• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
• /
• v.9 no.3
• /
• pp.146-155
• /
• 2006

A handful of previous studies have attempted to integrate socioeconomic data and remotely sensed data for urban quality of life assessment with their spatial dimension in a zonal unit. However, such a zone-based approach not only has the unrealistic assumption that all attributes of a zone are uniformly spatially distributed throughout the zone, but also has resulted in serious methodological difficulties such as the modifiable areal unit problem and the incompatibility problem with environmental data. An alternative to the zone-based approach can be a pixel-based approach which gets its spatial dimension through a pixel. This paper proposes a pixel-based approach to linking remotely sensed data with socioeconomic data in GIS for urban quality of life assessment. The pixel-based approach uses dasymetric mapping and spatial interpolation to spatially disaggregate socioeconomic data and integrates remotely sensed data with spatially disaggregated socioeconomic data for the quality of life assessment. This approach was implemented and compared with a zone-based approach using a case study of Fulton County, Georgia. Results indicate that the pixel-based approach allows for the calculation of a microscale indicator in the urban quality of life assessment and facilitates efficient data integration and visualization in the assessment although it costs an intermediate step with more processing time such as the disaggregation of zonal data. The results also demonstrate that the pixel-based approach opens up the potential for the development of new database and increased analytical capabilities in urban analysis.