• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.413-427
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• 2006

It is necessary to study and develop guidelines for providing comfort and health indoor air quality for office workers since air-tight envelope system of current office building may cause poor indoor air quality. The purpose of this study is to propose guideline for volatile organic compounds in office base on the field study, human health risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis. The field study was conducted to survey the concentrations of volatile organic compounds in indoor air of 69 offices from June to September, 2005 in Seoul and Gyeonggi-do. The rate of excess to guideline of volatile organic compounds in indoor air of new apartment on the Ministry of Environment in Korea(MOE) was surveyed 37.6% for benzene, 6.8% for toluene, and 1.5% for ethylbenzene. As the result of human health risk assessment, mean cancer risk did not exceed 10-6 which is guideline of US.EPA. Also, total hazard index did not exceed 1 which is guideline of US.EPA. Through the cost-benefit analysis of angle on the social-economics to verify the necessary to establish the standards of volatile organic compounds for improvement and development of indoor air quality in office, the present value of benefit was higher than the present value of cost. With the above considerations in mind, it is suggested that the field study for indoor air quality in offices should be expanded and human health risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis be performed th offer scientific data for decision-making of policy for improvement and management of indoor air quality in office.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.159-178
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• 2011

Korea ranks high among the OECD member countries with a high out-of-pocket share. In 2006, the government implemented in full scale the policy of extending the health insurance benefit coverage. Included in the policy are lowering the out-of-pocket share of patients of serious case and expanding the medical bill ceiling system to mention just a few. This study proposes to confirm effectiveness of the benefit extension policy by identifying changes in 'out-of-pocket expenditure as a share of the ability to pay' and 'incidence rate of catastrophic health care expenditure' of each individual household as manifested before and after the benefit extension policy was implemented. The 1st and 3rd year data from the Korea Welfare Panel Study (KoWePS), conducted by the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs (KIHASA), were used for the analysis, where low-income households and ordinary households are sampled separately. While the absolute amount of 'out-of-pocket expenditure' occurred to the average household increased for the period 2005-2007, the 'out-of-pocket expenditure as a share of the ability to pay' decreased. At the same time, the share decreased in the case of low-income households and households with patients of chronic or serious case as contrasted with ordinary households. 'Incidence rates of catastrophic health care expenditure' of ordinary households for 2007 stood at 14.6%, 5.9% and 2.8% at the threshold of 10%, 20% and 30%, respectively. The rates decreased overall between 2005 and 2007, while those of low-income households with patients of serious case statistically significantly increased. An analysis of this study indicates that it is related with the medical bill ceiling system regardless of incomes introduced in 2007.

• Journal of Digestive Cancer Research
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.104-107
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• 2023

The Ministry of Health and Welfare of Korea has implemented various social security programs to ensure a basic standard of living and raise overall quality of life for all citizens. The Korean social security system provides social insurance, public assistance, and social welfare services. To achieve adequate drug benefits, the Drug Management Department of Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA) implement drug management duties including drug listing, upper price limit setting, scope of benefits, and post-factum management. When a manufacturer or an importer wants to apply for National Health Insurance (NHI) coverage of the drug that has obtained safety and efficacy approval, the pharmaceutical benefit assessment committee of HIRA evaluates the drug's clinical efficacy and cost-effectiveness to determine whether or not to include the drug into the benefit package. The benefit standards for a listed drug (ingredient) are set either for the whole permitted range or a part of range with conditions. To increase the coverage rate for new drugs, the listed drugs are regularly reviewed for their value. The status of listed drugs can be adjusted or eliminated from the benefit package if the clinical efficacy turns out to be insignificant. Therefore, through these pharmaceutical management procedures, high-quality drugs are provided at reasonable prices, which save healthcare expenditure by price determination and selective coverage in consideration of economic evaluation.

• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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• v.4
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• pp.5-29
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• 1995

Occupational health services in Korea have been operated as dual types : one is operated by occupational health care manager and the other is health care agency without their own personnel. The performance of occupational health service should be different due to the variety of characteristics of health care manager and workplace, qualification of health care manager. This study is to analyze performance of occupational health care services with a particular consideration of job performance shape and efficiency, based on comparing those two types of health care management to show on the basic data for the settlement of more qualitative health care management system at workplace. For this study, total 391 places in Seoul and Inchon city area ; 154 places (39.4%) managed by designated health care manager and 237 places (60.6%) by the agency with their commission are selected as research samples. Tools for data collection are questionnares that have been investigated during the period of 20 September 1993-20 December 1993. Those data are compared with percentiles, mean, standard deviation and B/C ratio using SPSS PC program. Conclusions observed from the tests and each comparison could be summerized as follows : 1. Occupational health care have been accomplished at workplaces with designated people than with agencies people, and coverage rate of the occupational health care services has differences, due to management types. The reason of these results is due to visit only one or two times monthly by the agencies, while their own health care manager obsess, at the workplaces all the times. 2. Most of the expense for environmental control of all health care services expenditures shows that there is almost no fundamental improvement because more expenses are needed for procuring personal protective equipment and measuring work environment instead of environmental improvement. 3. It is investigated how much the cost of occupational health care services needs per worker, and calculated how much the cost needs per service hour per worker. The results from this show that the cost of occupational health services at workplaces with their own managers used less than the cost of health care agencies, eventually the former gives better services with less cost than the latter. 4. Benefit/Cost ratio is also produced by total benefit/total cost. The result from the above way reads 4.57 as a whole, while their own manager having workplaces reads 4.82 and the agencies do l.56. Even if their own manager performing workplaces spent more cost, this system produces more benefit than the agencies management. 5. The B/C ratio for medical organization such as local clinic, health care center and pharmacy shows more than or equal to at the workplaces controlled by the agencies. It is inferred that benefit would be much less than the cost used, with so being inefficient. 6. It is assumed that the efficiency ratio of health education is equal to reduction rate of workers medical organization visit. Estimated reduction rate 5%, 10%, 15%, show that the efficiency ratio of health education have an effect on producing benefits. It is estimated that more benefit can be produced if more qualitative education will be provided for enhancing health care efficiency. 7. Results of this study cannot be generalized because there are large scale of deviation in case of workplaces with less than 300 full time workers, but B/C ratio reads 2.69 as a whole and 3.25 at workplaces with their own health care manager are higher than 1.63 at the workplaces manged by the agencies. Finally, all the benefit concerning health care services could not be quantified, measured and shown on the value of money. This is a reason that a considerable part of benefits are so underestimated. This is also thought that measurement tools should be developed for measuring benefits of health care services with a comprehensive quantification. in the future. It is also expected that efficiency of occupational health care services should be investigated using cost-effectiveness analysis.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2001.10a
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• pp.91-96
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• 2001

Diminishing fare rate to distance is widely applied in transportation field including bus, but the decision method of diminishing rate is not established. The basic concept of diminishing fare rate to distance is that passengers have a benefit according to their travel distance. Furthermore, this can be justified in the standpoint of operator because the cost of long-distance traveller is lower than that of short-distance traveller to make same income. It is essential to introduce diminishing fare rate to distance to decide diminishing rate. We suggested methodologies regarding how to decide diminishing rate on the basis of operator costs.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.32-41
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• 2015

The Metropolitan Area Green Heat Project (MAGHP), which collects unused heat gathered from power plants, steel works, landfills in western Metropolitan area and distribute it to integrated energy business (IEB) companies, is proposed for the purpose of enhancing energy efficiency and providing low-price heat for IEB companies. Therefore, in order to decide on whether to initiate the MAGHP, the economic feasibility analysis of the project is widely demanded. This paper attempts to consider and measure four economic benefits: heat supply benefit, production cost reduction benefit, greenhouse gas mitigation benefit, and air quality improvement benefit. In addition, the paper tries to conduct the economic feasibility analysis. The project requires three-year investment and thirty-year operation. Three important findings emerge from the analysis. First, its net present value is computed to be 1,269 billion won and more than zero. Second, its benefit/cost ratio is calculated to be 1.72 and bigger than 1.0. Third, its internal rate of return is estimated to be 24.26% and larger than the social rate of return, 5.5%. In conclusion, the MAGHP is socially profitable and should be conducted immediately.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.11 no.12
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• pp.409-418
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• 2020

The purpose of this study is to analyze the economic feasibility of public postpartum care centers established for health care of low-income postpartum mothers. 6 of 8 public postpartum care centers were used to verify the economic feasibility and research data were collected through the centers. A sensitivity analysis was performed with the bed turnover rate, assuming that users in a postpartum care center will be decreased. As a result, B/C ratio was estimated to be 1.50 and the net benefit was estimated to be KRW 186,557 in million. A sensitivity analysis showed that B/C was 1.42 at 17.4 of bed turnover rate and 1.26 at 15.4 which indicates the lowest bed turnover rate among subjects. A public postpartum care center was evaluated as economically feasible as public works. Therefore it is necessary that the public postpartum care centers operated by local governments should be expanded through legal amendment.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Child Welfare
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• no.60
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• pp.59-86
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• 2017

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of child/family allowance on total fertility rate by period. For this purpose, it formed pooled-time series data from 1980 to 2015 targeting 19 OECD countries that adopted the child allowance policies, and made a close inquiry into a variable-based relationship through the pooled-time series cross-section analysis. The results were as follows. The child allowance appeared to have a significant impact on fertility rate even after controlling for other variables. Such impact was shown to be more noticeable in countries that introduced a fertility encouragement mechanism within its child allowance program. Based on the results, this study suggested the necessity of stepping up a benefit for multi-child families by additionally adopting a fertility encouragement mechanism within the child allowance program, in order for the child allowance program in Korea to function as well as the fertility rate promotion down the road.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.21 no.10
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• pp.37-42
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• 2016

We investigate multi user joint rate scheduling and power allocation problem for a delay sensitive CDMA systems. First, we characterize the existing two user joint rate scheduling and power allocation. We then extend the problem to the case of the multi user systems. In general, there is no simple optimum solution for the multi user scheduling problem. To that end, we propose a sub optimum solution, termed 'virtual user approach'. We show the performance of the virtual user approach to verify the benefit of complexity.

• Proceedings of the PSK Conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.38-39
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• 2003

There have been remarkable medical advances, largely as the result of improved understanding of disease mechanisms and of advances in human genetics at the individual level. Subsequently, remarkable effective medicines continue to be discovered at an increasing rate. Development of these medicines become increasingly complex, accompanied by globalization and global standards, requiring ever higher standards of efficacy, safety and quality. (omitted)