• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.48 no.6
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• pp.519-529
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• 2015

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the prevalence of food insecurity in Korean elderly and to analyze the health status as well as food and nutrient intakes according to food insecurity status. Methods: A total of 939 elderly subjects (over 65 years old) were used in our analysis from the fifth 2010 Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES V-1). The variables consisted of general characteristics, physical and mental health, nutrient intake, rate of deficient intake of energy and nutrients compared with Dietary Reference Intakes for Koreans (KDRIs) and food quality and diversity according to the status of food insecurity. Food insecurity status was measured using a self-reported food security questionnaire on the dietary situation in the previous year, and participants were classified according to three groups: food secure group, mildly food insecure group, and moderately/severely food insecure group. Results: The proportion of the food insecure group was approximately 67% and the food insecure group had lower income and educational status than the food secure group. Food insecurity was associated with worse physical and mental health status after adjusting potentially confounding variables. The results showed that food insecurity in Korean elderly significantly affected mental health (including stress cognition, depression experience, and suicide thoughts) which exceeded stages of physical health. In addition, food insecurity showed significant association with low nutrient intake and high rate of deficient intakes of energy and nutrients compared with KDRIs, and a reduction of dietary quality and diversity was indicated in the food insecure group. Conclusion: This study concludes that the prevalence of food insecurity may affect the physical and mental health as well as dietary intake of the elderly Korean population. Therefore, food insecurity should be considered as an important public health issue in Korea.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.245-263
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• 2000

This study was conducted to provide the basic data about the health effects of pesticide exposure among farmers for agricultural health study. We analyzed 412 self-administered questionnaires collected from the male farmers who spray pesticides in Kyoung-ju area, Korea. Survey questions were about chronic symptoms, acute symptoms while pesticide spraying, pesticide intoxication accident, safety rules, protective equipments etc. The correlations among the variables related to pesticide exposure and the factors in acute pesticide poisoning and chronic symptoms of farmers were also analyzed. For chronic symptoms, the prevalence of 'tiredness and languor', 'lumbago', 'nocturia', 'shoulder pain', 'numbness', and, for acute symptoms while pesticide spraying, the experience rate of 'itching sense of skin', 'dizziness/headache', 'fatigue', 'eye glaring' were high compared with other symptoms. For 'experience of intoxication accident by pesticide in family', 7.1% of the subjects experienced the accident and the causes were pesticide spraying, food contamination by pesticide, suicide etc. Among safety rules, 'take a bath after spraying', 'change clothes after spraying' were kept relatively well, and, for protective equipments, hat, boots, mask, gloves, protective clothes(lower) were put on relatively well. The factors associated with acute pesticide poisoning were the extent of keeping safety rules, spraying time, orchard cultivation, agricultural area and spraying days per year etc. And the factors associated with chronic symptoms were acute symptoms while pesticide spraying, agricultural area, farming career, extent of keeping safety rules, extent of agricultural work and the pesticide exposure index etc. From these results, it is suggested that to reduce the health effects by pesticide exposure among farmers, the education to promote to keep safety rules and wear protective equipments, and information services should be recommended. And further studies on the long term health effects of pesticide exposure among farmers are required.

• Korea Science and Art Forum
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• v.34
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• pp.327-337
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• 2018

Korea is rapidly becoming an aging society as much as it takes the first place among OECD countries, and as the life expectancy of Korea gradually increases, the proportion of the elders in society increases. Accordingly, the happiness of the elders is contributed to the overall social atmosphere and happiness, however, the lower quality of life of the elders due to physical, psychological and social changes can be developed into social problems such as depression and rising suicide rate. As a result, there is a social interest in improving the quality of life and satisfaction of the elders, and the senior citizen center is receiving renewed attention as a form of welfare facility that can play a pivotal role in the social activities of the elders. In recent years, efforts to improve the environment of the senior citizen center have been made due to the growing role of it, however, there is a controversy over whether the quality of the indoor environment is user-friendly or not due to the limitations of material resources and human resources. It is considered that the quality of the color environment should be improved in the senior citizen center in the way that the color environment is not only an indoor environmental factor which gives high psychological and mental effects to users but also a way to improve the environmental satisfaction at the lowest cost. Previous studies on the facilities related to the elders have been actively carried out, but they were very sporadic and there was very little information about the color environment in the related laws or in the guideline presented by cities. It is necessary to integrate guidelines that are scattered within a comprehensive range without any specific target in order to grasp the current status of the color environment and to properly evaluate it. In addition, considering that the senior citizen center is an important leisure facility for the elders that functions in a residential area with a nationwide network, the results of this study are expected to contribute to the environmental improvement of existing senior citizen center which will be activated in the future by enabling the improvement of psychological satisfaction of the elders.