• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.69 no.3
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• pp.9-33
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• 2017

This study estimated the socioeconomic costs of child poverty. Based on previous studies, the present study organized component categories for direct and indirect costs of child poverty, and estimated the cost of each category in 2015 through the collection of existing data and Delphi survey techniques among experts. The total socioeconomic costs of child poverty were compared to Korea's GDP. The results of this study were as follows. First, the socioeconomic costs of child poverty in Korea in 2015 ranged from 55 trillion KW(3.5% of GDP) to 99 trillion KW(6.5% of GDP). Second, the indirect socioeconomic costs of child poverty are much higher than the direct costs. Third, among the total cost categories, costs related to productivity loss and unemployment accounted for the largest portion of both the socioeconomic costs based upon absolute poverty and relative poverty. Crime costs are the second largest. Based on these results, we discussed the importance of early intervention for children in poverty; implementation of two-generation program that intervenes simultaneously with parents and children; and long-term, continuous and integrated intervention for high-risk groups such as poor children.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.341-351
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to estimate the socioeconomic costs resulting from alcohol drinking among adolescents as of 2006 from a societal perspective. Methods: The costs were classified into direct costs, indirect costs, and other costs. The direct costs consisted of direct medical costs and direct non-medical costs. The indirect costs were computed by future income losses from premature death, productivity losses from using medical services and reduction of productivity from drinking and hangover. The other costs consisted of property damage, public administrative expenses, and traffic accident compensation. Results: The socioeconomic costs of alcohol drinking among adolescents as of 2006 were estimated to be 387.5 billion won (0.05% of GDP). In the case of the former, the amount included 48.25% for reduction of productivity from drinking and hangover, 39.38% for future income losses from premature death, and 6.71% for hangover costs. Conclusions: The results showed that the socioeconomic costs of alcohol drinking among adolescents in Korea were a serious as compared with that of the United States. Therefore, the active interventions such as a surveillance system and a prevention program to control adolescents drinking by government and preventive medicine specialist are needed.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Child Welfare
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• no.53
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• pp.25-50
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• 2016

For child abuse prevention in Korea, this study estimated the socioeconomic costs of child abuse. Based on previous studies, the present study organized component categories for estimable direct and indirect costs of child abuse, and estimated the cost of each category in 2014 through the collection of existing data and through Delphi survey techniques among experts. The total socioeconomic costs of child abuse were compared to Korea's GDP. The results of this study were as follows. First, the socioeconomic costs of child abuse in Korea in 2014 ranged from 389.9 billion KW(0.03 percent compared to GDP) to 76 trillion KW(5.1 percent compared to GDP). Second, the indirect socioeconomic costs of child abuse are much higher than the direct costs. Third, costs related to productivity loss and unemployment accounted for the largest proportion of the total costs. In addition, the proportion of the child protection budget in Korea was very low compared to developed countries. These findings suggest that there is a need to increase Korea's child protection budget and to take urgent action to detect unrevealed child abuse cases. Furthermore, in order to reduce indirect costs, it is important to provide abused children with early professional treatment.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.61 no.2
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• pp.371-389
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• 2009

This study estimates the socioeconomic costs of missing children in Korea. The costs were classified as direct costs and indirect costs. The direct costs consisted of direct costs for searching for missing child such as making posters, transportation, and medical costs. The indirect costs were computed by the opportunity costs caused by child missing. The total costs that could be attributable to missing child were estimated to be about 570 million won per long-term missing child. This provides strong evidence that prevention of child missing is the most important and quick recovery after child is missing is the second most important. Missing child incurs substantial socioeconomic costs to the Korean society. Therefore, this study provides strong need for more interest from people who are indifferent to missing child issues and strong support for more government interventions to solve missing child problem in Korea. Further studies are needed to calculate socioeconomic costs of child missing more exactly.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.21-29
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• 2006

Objectives: We wanted to estimate the annual socioeconomic costs of alcohol drinking in Korea. Methods: The costs were classified as direct costs, indirect costs and the other costs. The direct costs consisted of direct medical costs, indirect medical costs and subsidiary medical costs. Particularly, the medical costs and population attributable fraction for disease were considered to reflect the calculation of the direct medical costs. The indirect costs were computed by the extent to which the loss of productivity and loss of the workforce might have occurred due to changes in mortality and morbidity according to alcohol drinking. The other costs consisted of property loss, administration costs and costs of alcoholic beverage. Results: The annual costs, which seemed to be attributable to alcohol drinking, were estimated to be 149,352 hundred million won (2.86% of GDP). In case of the latter, the amount includes 9,091 hundred million won for direct costs (6.09%), 62,845 hundred million won for the reduction and loss of productivity (42.08%), 44,691 hundred million won for loss of the workforce (29.92%), and the other costs (21.91%). Conclusions: Our study confirms that compared with the cases of Japan (1.9% of GNP) and the other advanced countries (1.00-1.42% of GDP), alcohol drinking incurs substantial socioeconomic costs to the Korean society. Therefore, this study provides strong support for government interventions to control alcohol drinking in Korea.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.352-361
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• 2010

Objectives: This study estimated the annual socioeconomic costs of food-borne disease in 2008 from a societal perspective and using a cost-of-illness method. Methods: Our model employed a comprehensive set of diagnostic disease codes to define food-borne diseases with using the Korea National Health Insurance (KNHI) reimbursement data. This study classified the food borne illness as three types of symptoms according to the severity of the illness: mild, moderate, severe. In addition to the traditional method of assessing the cost-of-illness, the study included measures to account for the lost quality of life. We estimated the cost of the lost quality of life using quality-adjusted life years and a visual analog scale. The direct cost included medical and medication costs, and the non-medical costs included transportation costs, caregiver's cost and administration costs. The lost productivity costs included lost workdays due to illness and lost earnings due to premature death. Results: The study found the estimated annual socioeconomic costs of food-borne disease in 2008 were 954.9 billion won (735.3 billion won-996.9 billion won). The medical cost was 73.4 -76.8% of the cost, the lost productivity cost was 22.6% and the cost of the lost quality of life was 26.0%. Conclusions: Most of the cost-of-illness studies are known to have underestimated the actual socioeconomic costs of the subjects, and these studies excluded many important social costs, such as the value of pain, suffering and functional disability. The study addressed the uncertainty related to estimating the socioeconomic costs of food-borne disease as well as the updated cost estimates. Our estimates could contribute to develop and evaluate policies for food-borne disease.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.1-12
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• 2002

Objective : To estimate the socioeconomic costs of obesity in Korea,1998. Methods : The 1998 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey(1998 NHNES) data was used and 10,880 persons who had taken health examinations were selected for study. Essential hypertension, NIDDM(non insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus), dyslipidemia, osteoarthritis, coronary heart disease, stroke were included as obesity related disease. The data of direct costs of obesity was obtained from the National Federation of Medical Insurance. The category of indirect costs was the loss of productivity caused by premature death and admission, time costs, traffic costs, nursing fees due to obesity. Multiple logistic regression model was developed to estimate prevalence odds ratio by obesity class adjusted demographic and socio-ecnomic factors and calculate PAF(Population Attributable Fraction) of obesity on obesity related disease. And we finally calculated the socioeconomic costs of obesity in relation to BMI with PAF. Results : The direct costs of obesity were 2,126 billion${\sim}965$ billion Won in considering out of pocket payment to uninsured services, and the indirect costs of obesity were 2,099 billion${\sim}1,086$ billion Won. Consequently, in considering out of pocket payment to uninsured services, the socioeconomic costs of obesity were 4.225 billion${\sim}2,050$ billion Won, which corresponded to about $0.094%{\sim}0.046%$ of GDP and $1.88%{\sim}0.91$ of total health care costs in Korea. Conclusions : Obesity represents a major health problem with significant economic implications for the society. This results are conservative estimates as far as all obesity related disease and all health care and indirect costs were not included due to missing information. further studies are needed to caculate socioeconomic costs of obesity more exactly.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.39 no.6
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• pp.499-504
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• 2006

Objectives : The aim of the study was to estimate the annual socioeconomic cost of diseases in Korea. Methods : We estimate both the direct and indirect costs of diseases in Korea during 2003 using a prevalence-based approach. The direct cost estimates included medical expenditures, traffic costs and caregiver's cost, and the indirect costs, representing the loss of production, included lost workdays due to illness and lost earnings due to premature death, which were estimated based on the human capital theory. The cost estimates were reported at three different discount rates (0, 3 and 5%). Results : The cost of diseases in Korea during 2003 was 38.4 trillion won based on 0% discount rate. This estimate represents approximately 5.3% of GDP The direct and indirect costs were estimated to be 22.5 trillion (58.5% of total cost) and 15.9 trillion won (41.5%), respectively. It was also found that the cost for those aged $40\sim49$ accounted for the largest proportion (21.7%) in relation to age groups. The cost of diseases for males was 23.5% higher than that for females. For major diseases, the total socioeconomic costs were 16.0, 13.4, 11.3 and 11.19% for neoplasms, and diseases of the digestive, respiratory and circulatory systems, respectively. Conclusions : This study can be expected to provide valuable information for determining intervention and funding priorities, and for planning health policies.

• The Journal of Korean Obstetrics and Gynecology
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.72-82
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• 2010

Purpose: This study was conducted to estimate the annual socioeconomic costs of menopausal syndrome treated with oriental medicine in Korea 2008. Methods: Study subjects selected were patients aged 40 years or older who had national health insurance(NHI) claims record with menopausal syndrome(KCDO codes: K04, K04.0, K04.2, K04.3, K04.4) for oriental medicine treatment in 2008. Direct medical cost of oriental medicine treatment for menopausal syndrome were measured from NHI claims records. Direct non-medical costs were estimated as transportation costs incurred when visiting hospitals. Indirect costs were defined as patients' productivity loss associated with office visits or hospitalization. Also, the costs of unpaid-household chores were calculated. Results: The total cost for the oriental medicine treatment of menopausal syndrome in the nation was estimated to be 743,091,219 Korean won(KRW) which included direct costs at 442,971,637 KRW and indirect costs at 300,119,583 KRW. Conclusion: This study provides an important perspective of socioecnomic influence due to menopausal syndrome treated with oriental medicine. And this results can be used as elementary data for menopausal syndrome-related health policy of oriental medicine.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.5-11
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• 2009

Objectives : This study was conducted to estimate the socioeconomic cost of injuries in South Korea. Methods : We matched claims data from national health insurance, automobile insurance and industrial accident compensation insurance(IACI), and mortality data obtained from the national statistical office from 2001 to 2003 by patients unique identifier. Socioeconomic cost included both direct cost and indirect cost: the direct cost was injury-related medical expenditure and the indirect cost included loss of productivity due to healthcare utilization and premature death. Results : The socioeconomic cost of injuries in Korea was approximately 1.9% of the GDP from 2001 to 2003. That is, 12.1 trillion KRW(Korean Won) in 2001, 12.3 trillion KRW in 2002, and 13.7 trillion KRW in 2003. In 2003, direct medical costs were 24.6%(3.4 trillion KRW), the costs for loss of productivity by healthcare utilization were 13.0%(1.8 trillion KRW), and the costs for loss of productivity by premature death were 62.4%(8.6 trillion KRW). Conclusions : In this study, the socioeconomic cost of injuries in Korea between 2001 and 2003 was estimated by using not only health insurance claims data, but also automobile insurance, IACI claims and mortality data. We conclude that social efforts are required to reduce the socioeconomic cost of injuries in Korea, which represented approximately 1.9% of the GDP for the time period specified.