• Title/Summary/Keyword: health policy in developed countries

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Strategies to reduce risk factors of non-communicable diseases in South Korea (만성질환 위험요인 감소를 위한 전략과 방향)

  • Khang, Young-Ho
    • Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
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    • v.33 no.4
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    • pp.1-9
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    • 2016
  • Objectives: This review is to suggest strategies to reduce risk factors of non-communicable diseases (NCD) in South Korea. Methods: Prior research findings on the burden of NCD and associated risk factors and the effectiveness of intervention programs were reviewed. Strategies regarding the control of NCD risk factors were conceived. Results: The author presented research findings from the Global Burden of Disease study on the burden of non-communicable disease (NCD) and associated risk factors in South Korea. Strengths and limitations of population and high-risk strategies for preventing NCDs were introduced. The author also reviewed the evidence on the effectiveness of multiple cardiovascular risk factor interventions and community-based intervention programs on cardiovascular diseases conducted in industrialized countries. Finally, strategies to reduce NCD risk factors in South Korea were suggested. Conclusions: The evidence-based interventions and the importance of population strategies in NCD prevention were highlighted. The author indicated that strategies employed by unhealthy commodity industries to undermine effective public health policies and programs should be actively monitored. It has been suggested that effective high-risk strategies with ecological models to address social risks rather than medical risks among disadvantaged population should be further developed in South Korea.

Establishing a Policy Framework for the Primary Prevention of Occupational Cancer: A Proposal Based on a Prospective Health Policy Analysis

  • Veglia, Amanda;Pahwa, Manisha;Demers, Paul A.
    • Safety and Health at Work
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    • v.8 no.1
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    • pp.29-35
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    • 2017
  • Background: Despite our knowledge of the causes of cancer, millions of workers are involuntarily exposed to a wide range of known and suspected carcinogens in the workplace. To address this issue from a policy perspective, we developed a policy framework based on a prospective health policy analysis. Use of the framework was demonstrated for developing policies to prevent cancers associated with diesel engine exhaust (DEE), asbestos, and shift work, three occupational carcinogens with global reach and large cancer impact. Methods: An environmental scan of existing prospective health policy analyses was conducted to select and describe our framework parameters. These parameters were augmented by considerations unique to occupational cancer. Policy-related resources, predominantly from Canada, were used to demonstrate how the framework can be applied to cancers associated with DEE, asbestos, and shift work. Results: The parameters of the framework were: problem statement, context, jurisdictional evidence, primary prevention policy options, and key policy players and their attributes. Applying the framework to the three selected carcinogens illustrated multiple avenues for primary prevention, including establishing an occupational exposure limit for DEE, banning asbestos, and improving shift schedules. The framework emphasized the need for leadership by employers and government. Conclusion: To our knowledge, this is the first proposal for a comprehensive policy framework dedicated to the primary prevention of occupational cancer. The framework can be adapted and applied by key policy players in Canada and other countries as a guide of what parameters to consider when developing policies to protect workers' health.

Agenda and Alternatives of Home Health Care Nursing Policy based on Health Care Law and Regulations (가정간호사업을 위한 의료법 제정의 의미와 과제)

  • Ryu, Ho-Sihn
    • Journal of Home Health Care Nursing
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    • v.7 no.1
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    • pp.15-25
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    • 2000
  • This article was trying to suggest an agenda and alternatives of home health care policy for the future home care growth and development and examine the significance of new health care law and regulations. In addition. It was to analyze and drive the home care system problems. of which was made an announcement on the 11th of April. that home health care project must be centered from the nationwide general hospital. As we have learned from the developed countries, the home health care have been closely related health care policy among the field of nursing area. Therefore. we need to understand our national health care policy and need to predict the future direction and goal of our home health care policy in order to enhance the growth and activation of health care system. Additionally. we also need to have a vision and ability to develop under our own health care policy with systematic and rational home care business escaping from past perspective and standpoint. We must create a master plan of home care system to fulfill one part of system of the function and an important role in order to pursue an advanced health care plan under our system. For instance. in the 21th century as we establish a master plan for the growth of our country home care plan with improving plan systematically and also we need to produce many highly qualified researching and good personal who can develop and maintain the system efficiently. Specially. based on the unique characteristics of our health care system and the direction of development of plan, we need to find and correct the problems which we have faced the present time, so that we can provide and reach the goal of advanced health care system which our government want to pursue. Finally. we have to strive our best effort to make our home health care system can be positioned and stand the right direction to have the benefit for every individual citizen in our country.

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How to Improve Influenza Vaccination Rates in the U.S.

  • Yoo, Byung-Kwang
    • Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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    • v.44 no.4
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    • pp.141-148
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    • 2011
  • Annual epidemics of seasonal influenza occur during autumn and winter in temperate regions and have imposed substantial public health and economic burdens. At the global level, these epidemics cause about 3-5 million severe cases of illness and about 0.25-0.5 million deaths each year. Although annual vaccination is the most effective way to prevent the disease and its severe outcomes, influenza vaccination coverage rates have been at suboptimal levels in many countries. For instance, the coverage rates among the elderly in 20 developed nations in 2008 ranged from 21% to 78% (median 65%). In the U.S., influenza vaccination levels among elderly population appeared to reach a "plateau" of about 70% after the late 1990s, and levels among child populations have remained at less than 50%. In addition, disparities in the coverage rates across subpopulations within a country present another important public health issue. New approaches are needed for countries striving both to improve their overall coverage rates and to eliminate disparities. This review article aims to describe a broad conceptual framework of vaccination, and to illustrate four potential determinants of influenza vaccination based on empirical analyses of U.S. nationally representative populations. These determinants include the ongoing influenza epidemic level, mass media reporting on influenza-related topics, reimbursement rate for providers to administer influenza vaccination, and vaccine supply. It additionally proposes specific policy implications, derived from these empirical analyses, to improve the influenza vaccination coverage rate and associated disparities in the U.S., which could be generalizable to other countries.

Competitiveness in Exports of Pharmaceuticals to Developed Countries: A Comparative Policy Analysis on South Korea and India (선진국으로의 의약품 수출 경쟁력: 한국과 인도를 대상으로 한 정책비교분석 연구)

  • Yun, Su-Jin;Cho, Eun
    • YAKHAK HOEJI
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    • v.56 no.2
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    • pp.116-125
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    • 2012
  • Local pharmaceutical companies in Korea, which have grown focusing on domestic markets, have recently faced difficulties such as market saturation, price control policies and market-opening pressures by FTA. It seems to be an urgent issue for them to export pharmaceuticals to developed countries comprising the greater part of the global pharmaceutical market. Hence, this research was conducted to investigate and benchmark the strategies employed by India industry for the successful access to the global pharmaceutical markets. Drug policies as well as their influences on pharmaceutical market changes between India and Korea for the last 40 years have been searched and the differences have been comparatively analyzed. The pharmaceutical industry of India has the following strengths: low costs; experienced labor pool; excellent reverse-engineering skills; powerful IT; marketing capability; and established distribution network. After 2000, consolidations, M&A and alliances with domestic and multinational companies have been sharply increased in the industry of India. Indian companies unfolding both competition and cooperation with multinational corporations currently move up the value-added chain, and this enthusiastic strategy should be learned by local pharmaceutical companies.

Ideology of Social Health Insurance and Health Policy (건강보험의 이념과 의료정책)

  • Lee, Kyu Sik
    • Health Policy and Management
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    • v.28 no.3
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    • pp.202-209
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    • 2018
  • Health care has two different facets. One is commodity and another is a right of human being. Health care as a commodity is utilized by demand approach in market. Demand is determined by economic factors such as price and income. From the last third of the 19th century until the early 1920s, priority of sickness insurance was replacing the income that workers lost as a result of illness and injury. By the 1920s, the capacity of applied biological and medical science was remarkably developed. Development of medical science stimulated the cost of medical care, and the burden of increased medical care cost required new role of medical care security system. In 1942, Beveridge report was published in United Kingdom, and health care was considered as a right of human being. In 1948, United Nations declared heath care as a right in the Universal Declaration of Human Right. In most countries introduced new medical care security policy based on health care as a right. The viewing health care as a commodity must be shifted toward need based care as a right. Need were understood to rest on demographic, epidemiological, scientific, and medical knowledge factors. Bring needed care to the population could best be achieved institutionally by a hierarchy of provider organizations, guided by planning bodies, which would provide comprehensive benefits. In Korea, health care in social health insurance (SHI) is considered as a commodity not a right. However, health policies under SHI must be need approach based on health care as a right. Mismatch between health policies and ideology of SHI made big troubles. It is important to realize ideology of SHI for good health policies.

Is the Risk-Standardized Readmission Rate Appropriate for a Generic Quality Indicator of Hospital Care? (일반 질 지표로서의 위험도 표준화 재입원율의 적절성)

  • Choi, Eun Young;Ock, Minsu;Lee, Sang-il
    • Health Policy and Management
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    • v.26 no.2
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    • pp.148-152
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    • 2016
  • The hospital readmission rate has been widely used as an indicator of the quality of hospital care in many countries. However, the transferrability of this indicator that has been developed in a different health care system can be questioned. We reviewed what should be considered when using the risk-standardized readmission rate (RSRR) as a generic quality indicator in the Korean setting. We addressed the relationship between RSRR and the quality of hospital care, methodological aspects of RSRR, and use of RSRR for external purposes. These issues can influence the validity of the readmission rate as a generic quality indicator. Therefore RSRR should be used with care and further studies are needed to enhance the validity of the readmission rate indicator.

Food Allergy, a Newly Emerging Food Epidemic: Is the Current Regulation Adequate?

  • Lee, N. Alice
    • Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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    • v.27 no.4
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    • pp.325-331
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    • 2012
  • Food allergy refers to an immunologically mediated adverse reaction to food, mainly to proteinaceous constituents. Health implications vary between those individuals who experience mild physical discomforts to those with fast-acting, life-threatening anaphylactic reactions. The prevalence of food allergy is higher in children than in adults, estimated around 4-8% and 1-2% respectively in developed countries. Food allergy has no effective cure at the present time and total avoidance of causative foods is the most reliable prophylactic method currently recommended by the medical community. To help food allergic patients to make informed choices of their foods, mandatory labeling of selected food allergens has been introduced in several countries. All food allergen labelling provisions specify a set of allergens common to the regulated countries. Policy divergence, however, exists between countries by inclusion of additional allergens unique to specific countries and enforcement of specific labelling requirements. Such variations in food allergen labelling regulations make it difficult to manage allergen labeling in imported pre-packaged food products. This paper addresses two current issues in food allergen regulation: 1) an urgent need to determine true prevalence of food allergy in the Asia-Pacific region. This will enable refinement to the food allergen regulation to be more country-specific rather than simply adopting CODEX recommendations. 2) There is an urgent need for harmonization of food allergen regulation in order to prevent food allergen regulation becoming a trade barrier.

The Utilization of Health Educator for Health Promotion (건강증진을 위한 보건교육과 보건교육사 활용)

  • 남철현
    • Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
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    • v.10 no.2
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    • pp.1-10
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    • 1993
  • Health behavior of the people is not satisfactory and it is recommended that proper health education methods be utilized for health promotion of the people. In order to accomplished health promotion objectives. it is necessary to assign teachers specialized in health education to schools and health educators to communities. Health promotion bill is prepared by members of national assembly and the government has to develope a sound policy for the health promotion of the people. In developed countries. health educator are serving communities and help people for health promotion. It is recommended that health educators be assigned to local health departments and local health centers throughout Korea, and to general hospitals. It is recommended that public health related associations, health education association and professors of health care departments in colleges work together for better health services through health education. The most important variable to affecting KAP level of people on environmental health was education level.

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A Critical Review on Complementary and Alternative Medicine/Pseudo-medicine/Quackery: Implication on Health Policy (유사의료/보완의료에 대한 보건의료정책학적 고찰)

  • Han, Dong-Woon;Hwang, Jung-Hye
    • The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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    • v.11 no.2
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    • pp.113-145
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    • 2010
  • Nowadays, it is surely the quack which stands as one of the most controversial, problematic. the quack has been a consistent target of contested public protection strategies in the past few centuries in many countries. Recently, complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is increasingly utilized and accepted by patients and providers throughout the health care system in the world, most accounts attribute this growing acceptability to the shortcomings of conventional medicine, the appeal of CAM's core beliefs, and the growing body of research indicating that CAM actually works. However, the governments of western countries have called for measures to ensure that the public are protected from incompetent and dangerous practitioners. Common to these controversies has been a suggestion to ban, exclude or limit the medical practice of those deemed to be damaging rather than improving the health of individuals as a measure of public protection. This article describes the experiences of western counties' health care system which is moving in a more pluralistic direction. By examining the ways in which regulatory efforts in the countries have come to address what is invariably described as a growing interest in CAM, this study show how the problem of CAM/quackery today is increasingly located in an ethical field of practitioner competency, qualifications, conduct, responsibility and personal professional development, regardless of the form of therapy in question. Many countries developed a series of measures and strategies to contain the acceptance of CAM groups, such as insisting on scientific evidence of safety and efficacy, resisting integration of CAM with conventional medicine and opposing government support for research and education. In a sense, those countries' movements serve to protect not only patients, but the dominant position of medicine and its allied professions, and to maintain existing jurisdictional boundaries within the healthcare system. The popular support for CAM will require that health professional stakeholders continue to address the challenges this poses, and at the same time protect their position at healthcare system. To cope with the quack, professional body, public sector and health authorities should consider the safety of consumers of healthcare and responding to the demands of the community for CAM therapies as well as the claims of the established healthcare professions. Finally, some implications for future health care were suggested.

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