• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
• /
• v.20 no.1 s.21
• /
• pp.10-39
• /
• 1987

Mortality rate and causes of death are regarded as an index of strength as well as level of development of a country. However, there is no accurate data for the causes of death in Korea due to lack of systematic vital data collection system. The objective of this study was to define the causes of death of the school teachers, its changing pattern, cause-specific mortality rate, and geographic variation. The study population included all of the teachers in primary school, middle and high schools, and college who joined in Korean Teachers' Union between 1968 and 1985 that provided a total of 1,972, 069 person-years to observe (1,384,911 man-years, 587,158 woman-years). There were 3,678 deaths in this period (3,377 males, 301 females). The most common cause of death was neoplasm which was followed by the diseases of circulatory system. The proportion of death of neoplasm was 1.5 times higher than that of the general population. Causes of death were classified into 5 major groups (neoplasm, diseases of circulatory system, accidents and poisoning, diseases of liver, and all others). The mortality rates of diseases of circulatory system and all others for general population were 4 to S times higher than those for the teachers. However, mortality rates of neoplasm and diseases of liver were only about 2 times higher than those for teachers. Mortality rate of liver cancer for teachers was higher than gastric cancer mortality rate which is the reverse in general population. The crude death rate was 2.12 per 1,000 person-years for male and 1.00 for female which is one-third of the crude death rate of general population. Crude death rate of study population was higher in rural area than in urban area. However, mortality rate of neoplasm for male was higher in urban area than in rural area while mortality rates of all other causes were higher in rural area. For female, mortality rates of neoplasm and diseases of circulatory system were higher in urban area and the rates for all other causes were higher in rural area. Crude death rate was lowest in Gyeongin area and highest in Yeongnam area. The mortality of neoplasm for male accounted the highest proportion of all death in Gyeongin, Chungcheong and Yeoungnam areas while the mortality of neoplasm and mortality of circulatory system accounted the same proportion in Jeonra area. For female, the mortality of disease of circulatory system accounted the highest proportion in Gyeongin and Yeoungnam and Jeonra areas. Proportion of death due to accidents and poisoning was high in Chungcheong area and death due to all other causes was high in Yeoungnam area. The most common cause of death for male by city and province was neoplasm in Seoul, Busan, Daegu, Gyeonggi, Chungnam, Chungbuk, Gyeongnam and Gyeongbuk. Diseases of circulatory system was the leading cause of death in the rest of city and provinces. The leading cause of death for female was diseases of circulatory system in Seoul, Incheon, Chungbuk, Chungnam, and Gyeongbuk, neoplasm in Busan, and accident and poisons in all other cities and provinces. The mortality rates of male were above 2 per 1,000 person-years in Jeju, Gyeongbuk, Gyeongnam, Daegu, and Chungbuk, and it was below 1.5/l,000 in Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi. The mortality rate of female was above 1.2/1,000 person-years in Gyeongnam and Incheon while it was below 0.5/l,000 in Daegu, Geonggi Chungbuk and Jeju. The leading cause for male by school of employment was neoplasm in all levels of school with a remarkably higher rate in the professors of college. Leading cause of death for female was disease of circulatory system in primary schools, high schools and college but neoplasm in middle schools. There was no death due to liver diseases in middle and high school teachers and college professors and no death due to all other category in high school teachers and college professors, in females. High school teachers and the highest mortality rate and college professors showed the lowest mortality rate. Temporal trend of mortality was examined in three periods; period I ($1968{\sim}1974$), period II ($1975{\sim}1979$), and period III ($1980{\sim}1985$). The leading cause of death for male was diseases of circulatory system in period I and II but neoplasm in period III. Such trend of decreasing diseases of circulatory system and increasing neoplasm was observed in female. Overall mortality rate was decreased over the 3 periods. The mortality rates of diseases of circulatory system, liver disease and all others were decreased in male but the mortality rates of neoplasm and accident and posions was increased. Female showed a similar trend to male but the mortality rate of liver diseases was increased. Mortality rates of diseases of circulatory system, neoplasm and liver diseases increased with age of teachers up to 50 years of age but decreased in 60 years of age. Mean age at death due to each cause was higher in male than female by $4{\sim}10$ years. However, the mean age at death of the teachers was $2{\sim}5$ years lower than that of the general population in all causes of death and the sex difference in the mean a2e at death was smaller ($2{\sim}3$ years) in general population. In sex ratio of mortality, male was higher than female in almost all diseases except suicide and maintained a high ratio. The general population showed universally high ratio in male like teachers, and more or less did regular patterns in mortality with ratio smaller.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
• /
• v.10 no.1
• /
• pp.142-149
• /
• 1977

To use basic data for health planning and evaluation of Kangwha community health project of Yonsei University, a study on death rates and causes of death were investigated in two townships (Naega and Sunwon Myuns) in Kangwha County from April 1, 1975 to March 31, 1977 All death was identified and reported by family health workers who are living in each village and 2 trained public health nurses confirmed the death. The causes of death were investigated by 2 public physicians. Total number of deaths for 2 years was 230 and the followings are brief summary of the study. 1. Age-adjusted crude death rates of study area were 8.69 per 1,000 population in 1975 and 7.18 per 1,000 population in 1976. Age-adjusted crude death rates for male were 9.18 in 1975 and 6.38 in 1976 and for female were 8.33 and 7.80 per 1,000 population 2. Age specific death rate curves by year and sex showed 'U' shapes. 3. Infant and neonatal death rates were 30.08 and 22.56 per 1,000 live births in 1975, and the rates in 1976 were 18.18 and 13.64. 4. The most common cause of death was cerebrovascular disease and average cause specific death rate for the disease was 215.5 per 100,000 population. 5. Four leading causes of death were non-infectious origin; cerebrovascular disease, malignant neoplasms, senility and suicide. Pulmonary tubeculosis and pneumonia occupied 5th and 9th causes of death. 6. Stomach cancer and hepatoma occupied 61.3% of total death due to malignant neoplasms. 7. Most frequent cause of neonatal death was birth injury. Two deaths due to tetanus were found in 1975, but no death due to this disease was found in 1976. 8. About half of deceased received care from physician before death.

• Korea journal of population studies
• /
• v.9 no.2
• /
• pp.79-92
• /
• 1986

Death is one of the population movement phenomena used as an important health index in most society. Especially it is regarded as group phenomenon in a specific group rather than individual one and considered important in public health field because the level and cause of death is related to health of public. The auther examined the changes of the Korean mortality pattern to evaluate the status of the Korean public health by studying mortality indicator using the population census and other materials from 1930 to 1980. The results are as follows: First, the Korean crude death rate was reduced to one third in 1980 compared to that in 1930, but the crude birth rate was constant from 1930 to 1960 causing the increase of population. So the population pattern is changing from the classic pyramic shape to bell shape and the dependency ratio was reduced from 78 in 1930 to 61 in 1980. Second, the infant mortality rate decrease rapidly. In 1980 it was one seventh of that in 1930 which was proved by the change of the age-specific death rate curve from U to J shape. Third, the male mortality reduction after the age of forty was much less than that of female, which explained the specific death pattern of high mortality in Korean middle and oldaged males. Fourth, the main cause of death was changed from infectious, parasitic, respiratory and digestive system disease to circulatory of tumorous diseases. Considering the above results, Korean health problem is now changing from the infant infection to geriatric chronic regressive disease. That naturally the direction of health service should be turned from the infant stage maternal and child health to the health problems of old people.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
• /
• v.4 no.1
• /
• pp.19-30
• /
• 1971

A survey was couducted by the staff of the Dept. of Preventive Medicine, Kyung Hee University, School of Medicine, from April through May 1971, on such events as delivery, death, abortion and family planning. The survey directed to a total population 6,552 (Male 3,133; Female 3,419) residing in this area (1,262 households) led us to the following findings: 1) Two year averages of crude birth rate, crude death rate and natural increase rates were 24.9, 5.0 and 19.9 respectively. 2) Infant death rates for the years 1969 and 1970 were 13.2 and 5.8 respectively, mean for the two year period being 9.3. 3) Hospital deliveries rated 68.5 per cent, Home deliveries 28.4 per cent and deliveries at midwives' offices 2.7 per cent. 4) Deliveries other than hospital and midwives' office deliveries were found to be attended more often by mothers. 5) About 41.4 per cent of all pregnant women during last two years received prenatal care once or more. 6) The induced abortion rate was 6.7 per cent in 1969 and 7.5 per cent in 1970. 7) The spontaneous abortion rate was 1.1 per cent in 1969 and 1.4 per cent in 1970. 8) Hypertension was the most frequent cause of adult death(21.6%). 9) The rate of current practice in family planning was 43.3 percent of all women.

• Korea journal of population studies
• /
• v.15 no.2
• /
• pp.15-59
• /
• 1992

After world war II Japanese life expectancy has been improved remarkably, and reached the highest level in the world around late 1970's. The life expectancy of Korean has also shown tremendous improvement in recent years with about 20 year's gap from the Japanese. The reason of rapid improvement of life expectancy can be explained by changes in the structure of cause of death due to health system, living standard, social welfare, health behavior of individuals and so on. Korean in Japan is placed under different situations from both Korean in Korea and Japanese in these regards, and expected to show different picture of cause of death pattern. The objective of this study is the comparision of changing patterns of cause of death of three population groups, Korean in Japan, Korean in Korea and Japanese, and to investigate the reasons which effect to the structural difference of mortality cause with special emphasis on health ecological aspects. One of the major limitations of the Korean causes of death statistics is the under-registration which ranges about 10% of the total events, and inaccuracy of the exact cause of death. Some 20% of registered deaths were unable to classify by ICD. However, it is concluded that the Korean data are evaluated as sufficient to stand for over-viewing of trends of cause of death pattern. The evaluation is done by comparing data from registration and field survey over the same population sample. Population data of Korean in Japan differ between two sources of data; census and foreigner's registration. Correction is done by life table method under the assumption that age-specific mortality pattern would accord with that of the Japanese. The crude death rate was lowest among Korean in Japan, 5.7 deaths per 1,000 population in 1965. The crude death rates of Korean in Japan and Japanese are increasing recently influenced by age structure while Korean in Korea still shows decreasing tendency. The adjusted death rate is lowest among Japanese, followed by Korean in Japan, and Korean in Korea. The leading causes of death of Korean in Korea until 1960's was infectious diseases including pneumonia and tuberculosis. The causes of death structure changed gradually to accidents, neoplasm, hypertensive disease, cerebro-vascular disease in order. The main difference in cause of death between Korean and Japanese if high rate of liver diseases and diabetes for both Korean in Japan and Korea. A special feature of cause of death among Korean in Korea is remakably high rate of hypertensive disease, which is assumed to be caused by physicians tendency in choosing diagnostic categories. The low ischemic heart disease and high vasculo-cerebral disease are the distinctive characteristic of the three population groups compared to western countries. Specific causes of death were selected for detailed sex, age and ethnic group comparisons based on their high death rates. Cancer is the cause of death which showed most dramatical increase in all three population groups. In Korea 20.1% of all death were caused by cancer in 1990 compared with 10.5% in 1981. Cancer of the liver is the leading cause of cancer death among Korean in Japan for both sexes, followed by cancer of the lung and cancer of the stomach, while that of Korean in Korea is cancer of the stomach, followed by cancer of the liver and cancer of the lung for male. Causes of infant mortality were examined among the three population groups since 1980 on yearly bases. For both Japanese and Korean in Japan, leading cause of death ranks as conditions originating in the perinatal period, congenital anomalies, accidents and other violent causes. Trends since 1980 for these two population groups in the leading cause of infant mortality showed no changes. On the contrary, significant changes in leading cause of death structure in Korea were observed : the ranking of leading cause of death in 1981 were congenital asnomalies, pneumonia bronchitis, infectious disease, heart disease, conditions originating in the perinatal period, accident and other violent causes ; in 1990 the ranking shifted to congenital anomalies, accident, pneumonia bronchities, conditions originating in the perinatal period, infectious disease. The mortality rate by congenital anomalies in Korea continuously grew than any other causes. Larger increase ocurred during the 1990's

• The Journal of Korean Academy of Orthopedic Manual Physical Therapy
• /
• v.15 no.2
• /
• pp.44-49
• /
• 2009

Purpose : The purpose of this study was to evaluate the incidence and mortality for hip fracture in the elderly in Jeju-do. Methods : We enrolled 254 cases among 318 patients older than 50 years of age with a hip fracture during two years period(2003-2004). We investigated the incidence and mortality during follow up 3~4 years period until December 31, 2007. Results : The crude incidences of hip fracture the age group ${\geq}50$ years were 141(11.2/10,000) in 2003, 177(13.6/10,000) in 2004, and 249(17.0/10,000), 69(6.3/10,000) for women and men, respectively. The mean age of them was 78.3 years, male was 69(21.7%), female was 249(78.3%) among 318 patients. Survivor was in the 146(57.5%), death was in the 108(42.5%) among 254 cases period for follow up. In the death group, activity was significantly lower at the time of post-fracture 3(p=0.013), 6(p=0.000), and 12 months(p=0.000). The mortality of hip fracture and crude death rate(CDR) were 108(42.5%, n=254), 11,884(1.7%, n=675,889) in 2003~2007 in Jeju. Conclusion : Developing and applying a variety of activity programs that increase activity in post-fracture may improve activities of daily living, reduce burden of family and society, be useful in improving the quality of life and ultimately lower the mortality.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
• /
• v.37 no.1
• /
• pp.44-51
• /
• 2007

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare suicide mortality by region in South Korea. Method: Suicide mortality differentials were calculated for several mortality indicators by geographical regions from raw data of the cause of death from KNSO. Results: The results are as follows; the Crude suicide death rate was 22.63 per 100,000. The highest was in Kangwon showing 37.84% whereas, Chungnam, and Jeonbuk followed after. Suicide was 4.4% of all causes of death, but Inchon and Ulsan showed a higher proportion. The male suicide death rate was 31.12 per 100,000 and females 14.09. The ratio of gender suicide mortality was 2.21, per 100,000 and was the highest in Jeju. For age-specific suicide death rates, the rate increased as age advanced, showing 2.33 per 100,000 in 0-19years, 18.68 in 20-39, 30.48 in 40-59, 63.33 in 60 years and over. In Ulsan, Kangwon, and Inchon, age-specific suicide death rates of the 60 and over age group were higher than other regions, Daegu, Busan, and Kangwon showed a higher age-specific suicide mortality of the 40-59 age group, and Kangwon, Jeonnam, and Chungnam had a higher age-specific suicide mortality of the 20-39 age group. Conclusions: Suicide mortality differed by region. These results can be used for a regional health care plan and planning for suicide prevention by regions.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
• /
• v.2 no.1
• /
• pp.61-76
• /
• 1969

A review has been made of mortality trends in Korea from 1958 to 1967 analyzing the data by sex, age and cause of death. The crude death rates and age specific death rates were estimated by the model of N. Keyfitz life table which had been developed by the data of the 1960's national census. The cause specific death rates shown in this article are based on the following: all deaths occurring in the death-registration are expressed as a numberator, while the denominator was estimated from the regular national census data by interpolation method. It is estimated that only an average of about 40% of deaths which occurred during a year were registered during 1958 to 1967. The validity and the reliability of the diagnosis of causes of death seem to be extremely poor in this country. Therefore the cause specific death rates in this article are aimed to reveal trends of causes of registered death ana not for the actual level of death rates. For 10 years very interesing mortality trends were observed : 1. The trend in the crude death rates was downward slowly. 2. The estimated death rate for the infant in 1960 was still high up to 100 per 1,000. 3. The rates for mortality attributed to such infectious diseases as pneumonia, bronchitis, gastroenteritis and measles decreased an average 40-60%. 4. The death rates for over-all tuberculosis decreased only 9.8%. 90% of the decrease was contributed by those in the less-than-15 year age group. 5. The death rates for chronic diseases, such as vascular diseases affecting the central nervous system, malignant neoplasm, major heart diseases and all accidents rose about 40-60%. 6. The rank order of the 10 leading causes of death showed large changes over the years, except for pneumonia and tuberculosis which occupyed 1st and 2nd places respectively. Vascular diseases affecting the central nervous system moved from 5th to 3rd place and malignant neoplasm from 6th to 4th place, The major heart diseases moved from 10th to 6th place and all accidents from 10th to 7th place. On tile other hand, gastroenteritis moved from 3rd to 5th place and influenja from 4th to 8th place.

• The Korean Journal of Food And Nutrition
• /
• v.8 no.2
• /
• pp.110-115
• /
• 1995

This study was devised to observe the inhibitory effects of ethanol treatment precipitate (crude acidic polysaccharide) from Korean red ginseng on a lipolytic action of Toxohormone-L which has been known as lipolytic and anorexigenic factors. Toxohormone-L was obtained by partial purification of the ascites fluid from mice which had been inoculated with sarcoma-180. The yields of crude acidic polysaccharide from Korean red ginseng was 63.5%. In vitro, at the concentration of 500rg /ml, the inhibition rate of lipolysis by the crude acidic polysaccharide of Korean red ginseng was 38.8% and the total inhibitory activity per gram of ginseng material was 4,928 nit. In vivo, the red ginseng polysaccharide(40mg/ml in saline soon.) 16ul/g of body weight was injected to the sarcoma-180 bearing mice once In 3 days until death. The effects against the extension of life span was little but body weight gain of sarcoma-180 bearing mice decreased significantly by administration of Korean red ginseng polysaccharide compared to those of the control group.

• Korea journal of population studies
• /
• v.6 no.1
• /
• pp.43-69
• /
• 1983

This study was conducted to make the life tables from specific causes of death in Korea. Both "Life tables of Korea in l978-79" and "the statistics on causes of death statistics in 1980" issued by Economic Planning Board were used as source of data for this study. Among the 58, 187 death certificates reported to the concerned authorities, 39, 801 causes were drawn for the purpose of this study. As a result, it is revealed that two thirds of men in Korea died from these 10 major causes of death. The summarized results are as follows: 1. According to recent statistics, 10 major causes of death in 1980 were shown in the order of 1) malignant neoplasms, 2) cerebrovascular disease, 3) accidents and adverse effects, 4)hypertensive disease, 5) ischaemic heart disease and heart attack, 6) chronic liver disease and cirrhosis, 7) tuberculosis, 8) pneumonia, bronchitis, emphysema and asthma, 9) suicide, 10) diabetes mellitis. 2. The major causes of death in Korea were very similar to those of developed countries such as West Germany, Denmark and Japan. This means that our pattern of death causes is almost approaching to that of developed countries. 3. Our crude death rate in 1980 was on the line of 6.6 per 1, 000 people. This is very low level, compared with 12.1 in West Germany and 10.0 in Denmark, however, our age sepcific death rate was on the verge of doubled level in each age category as to that of West Germany, Denmark and Japan. The fact tells us that our death rate is very high yet, especially in young and prime adult age, and the proportion of the aged is quite low. 4. Average ages of people died from malignant neoplasms, cerebro vascular diseases and hypertensive diseases were 63.1, 66.6, 67.3 respectively, however, that of accidents and adverse effect was only 42.5. This shows that accidents occur indifferently from age. 5. In the curve of eventual death probability, the curve of malignant neoplasms was the highest of all curves before 60 in age. However, the probability curve of eventually dying from accidents and adverse effects tends to decline with age. 6. In this study five life tables from major causes of death (four leading causes of death and of tuberculosis) were constructed for 1979. These life tables are reflecting accurately the effects of age distribution on the specific cause of death. In the surviving curje of these tables we can see that the curve of accidents is adversely related to age. While curves of neoplasms, hypertension and tuberculosis are not diminishing before 40 in age, they are going sharply downward after 50 in age.ard after 50 in age.