• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.49 no.5
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• pp.308-322
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• 2016

Objectives: The objective of this study is to investigate associations between contextual characteristics and unmet healthcare needs in South Korea after accounting for individual factors. Methods: The present study used data from the 2012 Korean Community Health Survey (KCHS) of 228 902 adults residing within 253 municipal districts in South Korea. A multilevel analysis was conducted to investigate how contextual characteristics, defined by variables that describe the regional deprivation, degree of urbanity, and healthcare supply, are associated with unmet needs after controlling for individual-level variables. Results: Of the surveyed Korean adults, 12.1% reported experiencing unmet healthcare needs in the past. This figure varied with the 253 districts surveyed, ranging from 2.6% to 26.2%. A multilevel analysis found that the association between contextual characteristics and unmet needs varied according to the factors that caused the unmet needs. The degree of urbanity was associated with unmet need due to "financial burden" (odds ratio [OR], 0.53; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.42 to 0.66 for rural vs. metropolitan), but not unmet need due to "service not available when needed." There were no significant associations between these unmet need measures and regional deprivation. Among individual-level variables, income level showed the highest association with unmet need due to "financial burden" (OR, 5.63; 95% CI, 4.76 to 6.66), while employment status showed a strong association with unmet need due to "service not available when needed." Conclusions: Our finding suggests that different policy interventions should be considered for each at-risk population group to address the root cause of unmet healthcare needs.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.271-279
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• 2000

Objectives : To assess the seroprevalence and risk factors of toxoplasmosis in high school students in Cheju Province, Korea. Methods : A total of 4,570 high school students from 18 schools in Cheju Province were investigated for Toxoplasma gondii antibodies(IgG) by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Risk factors for toxoplasmosis, such as place of residence, type of house, contact with cats and other pets, and rare meat consumption, were examined by questionnaire. Results . The overall antibody positive rate was 5.5% and ranged from 2.6 to 11.5% by school. There was no significant difference between males and females. Statistical analyses of the questionnaire data indicated that the risk factors for seropositivity were: (1) birth place (Cheju/others), (2) place of residence (rural/urban), (3) dietary habits (vegetarian/non vegetarian), (4) eating rare meat, (5) exposure to pets and (6) hepatitis B. Conclusion : We confirmed that the prevalence of the anti-Toxoplasma gondii antibody in a population of high school students in Cheju Province was to the previously reported prevalence.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.225-230
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• 1973

Five cases of esophageal cancer developed at the site of esophageal lye stricture were reported. Duration of lye stricture was between 13 and 40years, and all 5 cases had taken normal diet without appreciable troubles after recovery from the acute stage of burn till the suspected onset of esophageal malignaney. Outstanding symptoms of this grave condition were rather acute progressive dysphagia and frequent episodes of esophageal foreign bodies, Diagnosis could be confirmed easily by endoscopic biopsy in suspected eases, and all were epidermoid carcinoma histopathologically. Curative resection of this condition was made in neither of the cases, and their prognoses were more grave than other esophageal malignancies in our experience. The development of esophageal carcinoma at the site of corrosive esophagitis with resulting benign stricture has now been suspected as a cause and effect relationship between these two conditions, and Kiviranta: stated that the incidence of esophageal cancer in patients with lye stricture of longer duration is a thousand times higher than normal population. During last one decade the authors experienced 5 cases of esophageal carcinoma developed at the site of lye stricture of the esophagus among about 350 cases of lye burned esophagus at the Department of Thoracic & Cardiovascular Surgery, the National Medical Center in Seoul, Korea. In Korea they still use lye as a detergent in rural area, and there are still many persons ingesting lye for suicidal attempt or on accident. Lye stricture of the esophagus is, therefore, the most common esophageal disease needing surgical procedures, and the authors believe that there will be much more eases of lye stricture complicated by esophageal eareinoma repoted in near future in this Country.

• Journal of the Korea Furniture Society
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.317-323
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• 2007

Almost all the people, particularly the rural people are directly dependent on the continued productivity of natural resources, like water, soils, forests and fisheries. But the overuse by the extremely high population pressures has degraded the natural resources into severe widespread deforestation. The degradation of natural resources, particularly the plant resources has been a great concern for socio-economic and sustainable development of the country. The Forests in Bangladesh have been depleted and degraded in volume, area, and quantity, thus requiring urgent forest protection by identifying the causes of forest loss. There are so many causes of deforestation and loss of genetic resources such as; the timber industry, which, legal or not, are cutting too many trees; indigenous forest dwellers, having their own types of problems; migrants, who, because of problems in their places of origin, have decided to move to the forests and the government through its Forest Department which is not able or willing to implement suitable policies to regulate the cutting trees and to prevent illegal cutting. Because it is a time consuming task to mitigate the first and second sets of factors, we recommend involving forest dwellers in forestry practices as much as possible and taking necessary steps to alleviate the third and fourth sets and thereby reduce the rate of forest depletion. Accordingly, a number of strategies that should be adopted to halt the loss of remaining forest cover are discussed.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.16-29
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• 1989

The general objective of this study is to grasp the treatment expenses of common diseases by character of medical care institutions. The specific objective is to find out the treatment expenses for selected common diseases by type of medical care institutions and also by level of symptom. A record review method was employed to obtain required information for the analysis of expenses. A total of 40,000 cases treated by 85 medical care institutions were selected by the study team during the period 22 June to 14 July 1988. The 85 medical care institutions were sampled by stratified proportionate random sampling method. The major findings obtained from the information collected by the study team are as follows ; 1) Treatment expenses were composed of physical examination, medication, injection anesthesia, rehabilitation surgical intervention, lab test, X-ray and diagnosis. The highest expenses was for medication, accounted for 36.7% of the total: 13.9%, injection; Lab, tests respectively: 10.5%, physical examination : 8.6% surgical intervention; 7.9% admission : 6.3%, X-ray and diagnosis: 1.5%, rehabilitation. 2) Treatment expenses per case of common diseases were quite different from not only type of medical care institutions, such as university hospital, general hospital, hospital and clinic, but also from level of symptom. 3) Treatment expenses per case for the aged were higher than that of the young. The treatment cases for over 60 years of age accounted for 19.4% of the total, however the proportion of treatment expenses accounted for 23.8% of the total. 4) Duration of treatment and visits for same diseases varied from type of medical cara institutions. Based on these study findings, the following further research should be conducted: (1) Establishment of health care delivery system. (2) Feasibility of the development of health care programme for the aged. (3) Strengthening for primary health care approach.

• Environmental Analysis Health and Toxicology
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.193-202
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• 2009

In this study, we analyzed the blood cadmium concentration in general population of Korea, and followed the analyses the relations with epidemiologic factors, life-style and body iron store. The geometric mean concentration of blood cadmium was 1.20 ${\mu}g/L$ in study subject, the level of blood cadmium was higher in female (1.27 ${\mu}g/L$) than in male (1.11 ${\mu}g/L$). The mean concentration of blood cadmium was the highest in coastal area (1.80 ${\mu}g/L$) and followed in urban (1.01 ${\mu}g/L$) and rural area (0.90 ${\mu}g/L$). The cadmium concentration in whole blood was increased with age-dependent pattern, such as 0.64 ${\mu}g/L$ in the below 30 years, 0.95 ${\mu}g/L$ in the 30~44 years, 1.28 ${\mu}g/L$ in the 45~59 years and 1.31 ${\mu}g/L$ in the over 60 years. The level of blood cadmium was higher in smokers than in non-smokers, but was not significant by alcoholic habit. The blood cadmium level was different from occupations, which was the highest in the fishers as 1.87 ${\mu}g/L$. The inversed relation was observed between blood cadmium and serum Fe, while was correlated positively with the ferritin level. In summary, the environmental exposure to cadmium in Korean is not so much compared to other countries, and the blood cadmium is influenced by genetic factors (age and sex), life-styles (dietary habit, occupation and smoking habit) and nutrition such as serum iron.

• Advances in environmental research
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.45-69
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• 2014

The groundwater has been a major source of water supply throughout the ages. Around 50% of the rural as well as urban population in the developing countries like India depends on groundwater for drinking. The groundwater is also an important source in the agriculture and industrial sector. In many parts of the world, groundwater resources are under increasing threat from growing demands, wasteful use and contamination. A good planning and management practices are needed to face this challenge. A key to the management of groundwater is the ability to model the movement of fluids and contaminants in the subsurface environment. It is obvious that the contaminant source activities cannot be completely eliminated and perhaps our water bodies will continue to serve as receptors of vast quantities of waste. In such a scenario, the goal of water quality protection efforts must necessarily be the control and management of these sources to ensure that released pollutants will be sufficiently attenuated within the region of interest and the quality of water at points of withdrawal is not impaired. In order to understand the behaviour of contaminant transport through different types of media, several researchers are carrying out experimental investigations through laboratory and field studies. Many of them are working on the analytical and numerical studies to simulate the movement of contaminants in soil and groundwater of the contaminant transport. With the advent of high power computers especially, a numerical modelling has gained popularity and is indeed of particular relevance in this regard. This paper provides the state of the art of contaminant transport and reviews the allied research works carried out through experimental investigation or using the analytical solution and numerical method. The review involves the investigation in respect of both, saturated and unsaturated, porous media.

• Journal of Korean Library and Information Science Society
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.337-352
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to investigate the joint-use libraries from other countries and provide some directions for the joint use library of Korea. The analyses revealed that there were two types of joint-use libraries broadly. One was school/public library, and the other was academic/public library. The advantages of joint-use libraries were the hiring of professional staff, collection increase, various library programs, and the efficient use of library space. The disadvantages of joint use libraries were the problems of the joint-use library located in school, busy space, limited library collection, and the limited function of school library. Success factors for Joint use libraries were the population of community, process of formal planning, community involvement and support, written legal agreement. This study showed two types of joint-use libraries for Korea : school/public library for rural areas and academic/public library for small cities.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.12
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• pp.7207-7213
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• 2013

Background: Despite the efficacy of regular mammograms, the incidence and mortality rate of breast cancer have been increasing in China. Insufficient studies on the factors affecting mammography adherence in Chinese married women have been conducted. The purpose of the present study was to explore the factors associated with adherence to guidelines for regular mammography among Chinese married women. Materials and Methods: The participants were recruited conveniently and included Chinese and Korean Chinese women who were married, living at Yanbian City in China. Demographic information, status regarding eight risk factors of breast cancer, health responsibility, and perceived benefits/barriers of mammography were obtained. Descriptive analyses, t-test, and multivariate analysis were performed. Hierarchical logistic regression was conducted to explore the factors associated with regular mammography adherence in Chinese and Korean Chinese subgroups. Results: About 24% of the sample population was adherent in going for regular mammography. The adherent group was significantly more educated, had more children, and had a lower proportion experiencing early menarche and a greater menopausal proportion than the non-adherent group. The final model using logistic regression analysis showed that being Chinese [OR=2.199 (1.224-3.951)], having no or one child [OR=4.879 (1.835-12.976)], early menarche [OR=3.515 (1.057-11.694)], being menopausal [OR=3.120 (0.965-10.088)], aged 40-49 [OR=2.374 (1.099-5.124)], having low education [OR=0.400 (0.211-0.765)], and perceiving greater benefits in doing mammography [OR=1.080 (1.014-1.151)] were significantly associated with mammography adherence, after controlling for covariates. Conclusions: Sociocultural sensitive intervention for minorities should be emphasized when improving the adherence of regular mammography. Intervention tailored for women with lower education should be delivered and the benefits of mammography should be propagated to women in rural areas of China.

• Journal of Korean Society for Geospatial Information Science
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• v.2 no.2 s.4
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• pp.67-79
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• 1994

Recently, the rapid economic growth has caused urban problems due to the increase of urban population and the rapid expansion as a result of exodus phenomenon in rural territories. In order to solve the problems, we need to perform rational and effective plans for national land development. Generally, we need speedy and accurate topographical information of the object area to go ahead with balanced national land development. Acquisition method for topographical data include utilization of existing geographic information such as national base maps and related thematic maps and grasping of accurate present condition of object area using aerial photographies or satellite images. When the object area is small, existing methods for acquiring topographical information reveals imitations in accuracy, speed and economic aspect. Therefore, development of a new method is in order. As a result of this study, we recogized that Photo Balloon System to be manufactured and digital ortho-map to be generated could be used to obtain a topographical information for small areas.