• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.50 no.3
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• pp.325-338
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• 2015

Telemedicine, which gives or receives medical information via ICT (information and communication technology), is regarded as innovation in a medical field and its application is various according to offline conditions. For example, the utilization of telemedicine in Korea is unfair because of the administrative discretion, which is the basic unit of telemedicine for its practical operation, in spite of the same diagnostic area. With this mind, this study investigates the cause of regional differences of telemedicine through a case of Kangwon province. Furthermore, the crucial matter is that regional differences of telemedicine are associated with digital divide; therefore, this research considers digital divide triggered by telemedicine. The core results are as follows. First, there are little measures such as increase of the staff, economic compensation for public officials, education of telemedicine facilities; accordingly, only regions, where can accept these insufficient conditions, manage the telemedicine system. Second, the interesting of a mayor or a governor and a head of a health center as a highest decision maker has something to do with different utilization of telemedicine. Third, public health doctors play a role as practical operators in telemedicine, but their stance is skeptic about telemedicine somewhat because of the relationship with the medical association opposing the implementation of telemedicine, unimproved regional health care condition, etc. Forth, it seems that the digital divide caused by the regional differences of the present telemedicine utilization does not led to tangible results and is not turned to another disparity so far, the proper measures are required considering that various health care services based on telemedicine will be extended.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.48 no.4
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• pp.509-532
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• 2013

Minimum Housing Standard is an instrument to cope with the problems of public health and community hygiene, deterioration of working class housing conditions appeared commonly in the process of capitalist industrialization and rapid rural-to-urban migration. This paper aims to examine the institutionalization of histories of minimum housing standard in the advanced countries, and analyze the spatio-temporal changes and characteristics of households failing to meet the New Minimum Housing Standard in Seoul Metropolitan since 1995. The analysis of this paper is based on the census data on population and housing. The results are as follows; Households failing to meet the New Minimum Housing Standard in Seoul are 501,000 households(1.368 million person, 14.4%). This means Seoul has overtaken the national average 11.8% for the first time and there are structurally marginal band of households who can not improve the housing conditions by themselves. In addition, the fact that the rate of Seoul households living in the marginal shelter including the basement and rooftop room is the highest in Korea means the housing quality issues of Seoul is serious. Spatial distribution of households failing to meet the standard is divided into the northeast area and the southwest area in Seoul. Main features of the households are female-headed families, middle and old-aged people, divorce families, lower educated people, under and graduate students, non-apartments, dweller in 15~20 year old houses.

• Spatial Information Research
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.23-32
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• 2012

This study applied an exploratory analysis based on Self Organizing Map and GIS to cause specific age-standardized regional death rates data related to ten types of male cancers to find meaning patterns in the data. Then the patterns revealed from the exploratory analysis was evaluated to investigate possible relationship between these patterns and regional socio-economic status represented by regional educational attainment levels of head of household. The results from this analysis show that SI-GUN-GUs in Korea can be clustered to eighteen unique clusters in the stand point of male cancer death rates and these clusters are also spatially clustered. Also, the results reveal that regions with higher socio-economic status show lower level of the death rates compared with the regions with lower socio-economic status. However, for some cancer types, the regions with higher socio-economic status show relatively higher death rates. These patterns imply that the prevention, detection, and treatment of male cancers might be strongly affected by regional factors such as socio-economic status, environmental factors, and cultures and norms in Korea. Especially, one of the eighteen clusters, which includes Gangnam-Gu and Seocho-Gu, shows lower death rates in many of male cancer types. This implies that socio-economic status may be one of the most influential factors for regional cancer control.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.51 no.1
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• pp.36-42
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• 2007

Hepatitis B is a serious public health problem leading to chronic infection and liver cancer. Quantitation of circulating hepatitis B virus (HBV) is important for monitoring disease progression and for assessing the response to antiviral therapy. In this study, by using Real-Time PCR and novel Micro-PCR assay method, we measured HBV concentration in the clinical sample. A total of 120 serum samples from patients with HBV infection collected was in Dankook university hospital to compare the detection limit, sensitivity, specificity and reproducibility of the two assay methods. These findings of this study suggest that Micro-PCR and Real-Time PCR assay methods are comparable to each other in there detection limit, sensitivity, and reproducibility for HBV DNA quantitation. However, Micro-PCR assay is more efficient than Real-Time PCR method, because Real-Time PCR is not so time - consuming, technically easy and need to reagent of a small quantity. It will be useful for rapid and reliable clinical diagnosis of HBV in many countries.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.40 no.5
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• pp.595-601
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• 1993

Background: Today, tuberculosis continues as an important cause of death in Korea despite the effective treatment and prevention. So we have studied charicteristic distribution of death by pulmonary tuberculosis through epidemiologic survey. Subjects and Method: The mortality data were obtained from 684 pulmonary tuberculosis cases who died in a tuberculosis-centered hospital in Seoul during the period of 5 years from 1986 to 1990. In order to estimate the distribution of death by tuberculosis, t-test and $x^2$-text were performed on the data. Results: 1) 19.9% of patients died among the total 3,441 hospitalized pulmonary tuberculosis cases during 5 years. 2) In distribution of sex and age, male death occupies 81% of total death. Significantly high proportions of younger female death (under 40 years-old) were also observed. 3) In terms of medical security status, medical assistance group occupies 42.3% of medical insurance group while the non-security group also occupies 11.8% of total death. 4) Treatment interruption was observed in 78% of total death. Conclusion: Special attention should be given to the identification, management and follow up of high risk group in nationwide tuberculosis control program.

• Biomedical Science Letters
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.77-82
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• 1997

One of the most important prerequisites of the industrial microorganism is that it should not be virulent to humans or economically important animals or plants. In this investigation, the microbiological characterization of T. madida N-5-3 strain was performed. And then, the virulence of the test strain in mouse model was examined systematically. The microbiological characteristics of the test strain were found to be fully consistent with those of typical T. madida. The i.p. lethal dose(LD)$_{50}$ of the test strain was greater than 1$\times$10$^8$, because there was no dead animal with the challenge doses upto the level of 1$\times$10$^8$. When 1$\times$10$^8$ yeast cells were challenged to the laboratory mice, T. madida N-5-3 strain was completely cleared from the liver and spleen in 4 days after challenge. And no pathological changes in the histological examination of the internal organs from challenged mice was observed. Above results can provide the predictability of the safety of T. madida N-5-3 strain for the industrial use in the view point of the public health aspect.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.43-56
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• 2007

Since the 1970s, along with an increasing number of motor vehicles in Korea, road crashes and casualties started to increase and eventually resulted in a serious public health problem starting from the beginning of the 1990s. Government authorities, however, have been not so proactive with reducing road crashes and injuries as well as deaths and have been reluctant to design effective safety strategies that could be established in collaboration with relevant multidisciplinary professionals. This paper aims at showing the status of road safety versus socioeconomic development in Korea and highlighting safety strategies that particularly need the participation of medical professionals. Six indicators to measure socioeconomic development and two indices for road safety were examined and international comparisons were made, finding road safety in Korea has been not corresponding to its level of development. The imbalance between socioeconomic development and road safety will certainly require the government authorities to look for effective safety strategies necessitating cooperation and collaboration with relevant experts including medical professionals. To make a provision for such needs in the near future, studies and experiences previously reported in the literature of traffic medicine and the world congresses of the International Traffic Medicine Association since 1984 were reviewed and categorized to focus on the strategies as well as measures that would be most effective in a mid-income country such as Korea.

• Journal of Society of Preventive Korean Medicine
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.11-18
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• 2017

Objectives : In an effort to suggest a developmental plan of Traditional Korean Medicine health promotion project(TKM-HPP), this study was conducted to identify the problems experienced by public health Traditional Korean Medicine(PH-TKM) doctors in duty and to analyze successful cases of the health promotion project. Methods : Two PH-TKM doctors in duty at the Public Health Centre branch and Public Health Centre respectively, and one TKM doctor in charge of Public Health Centre participated in the in-depth interview. The research procedure was as follows; 1) inform study objectives and interview questions to participants, 2) in-depth interview with semi-structured questions, and 3) post-confirmation and verification. The interview was recorded and transcripted. In-depth interview was composed of 6 subsections: 1) Introducing participants and share purpose of interview, 2) Confirmation of the job status and difficulty of public health centre, 3) Reflecting and sharing experiences of public health clinic job performance cases, 4) Current status and improvement needs of TKM-HPP, 5) Discussions on improvement of TKM-HPP in public health center, 6) Sharing and reconfirmation of interview results. Thematic analysis was conducted from the narratives. Results : The study showed that; 1) the support from the local government was critical for the successful TKM-HPP and participation of the PH-TKMs; 2) the major problems experienced by PH-TKMs were lack of training for TKM-HPP in the field and lack of knowledge at local government level; 3) the suggestions to provide PH-TKMs with manual to educate residents effectively and redefine roles of PH-TKMs in the project. It also suggests that TKM-HPP model should be developed by the district in a way of reflecting regional characteristics. Conclusions : Firstly, more efforts should be made on the projects rather than medical treatment in public health centers, except for areas where medical institutions are scarce. Secondly, in order to facilitate participation of PH-TKM doctors, each local office should reduce medical care and increase efforts related with projects. Thirdly, the institution has to develop feasible TKM-HPP plans that can be carried out by PH-TKMs by the manual. Lastly, pre-training should be provided to PH-TKMs to understand contents of TKM-HPP related to public health centre work before the placement.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.63-67
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• 2012

Antibiotic resistance in animal isolates of enterococci is a public health concern, because of the risk of transmission of antibiotic-resistant strains or resistance genes to humans through the food chain. This study investigated phenotypic and genotypic resistances profile of tetracycline in 245 $Enterococcus$ isolates from bovine milk. A total of 245 enterococci were isolated from 950 milk samples. The predominant strain was $E.$ $faecalis$ (n = 199, 81.2%) and $E.$ $faecium$ (n = 25, 10.2%). $E.$ $avium$ (n = 7, 2.9%), $E.$ $durans$ (n = 6, 2.5%), $E.$ $gallinarum$ (n = 4, 1.6%), and $E.$ $raffinosus$ (n = 4, 1.6%) were also isolated. Of the 245 enterococcal isolates 76.3% (n = 187) displayed tetracycline resistance (${\geq}16{\mu}g/ml$). Of the 187 tetracycline-resistant isolates, 83.4% (n = 156), 16.1% (n = 30), and 26.7% (n = 50) possessed the genes $tet$(M), $tet$(L), $tet$(S) respectively. While 3.2% (n = 6) of the tetracycline-resistant isolates possessed all three genes $tet$(M) + $tet$(L) + $tet$(S), 8.6% (n = 16), 16.0% (n = 30), and 2.7% (n = 5) of them possessed two genes $tet$(M) + $tet$(L), $tet$(M) + $tet$(S), and $tet$(L) + $tet$(S) respectively. The tetracycline resistance pattern investigated in this study was attributable mainly to the presence of $tet$(M).

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.241-250
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• 2018

Recently, negative effects on human health such as disease caused by harmful environment have been dealt with seriously. In particular, studies on the effect of radon exposure, which is known as a primary carcinogen in lung cancer due to radioactive materials, have been actively studied. In Korea, since January 1, 2018, radon measurement is mandatory when building a new apartment, so it is necessary to measure the radon concentration and submit it to the local government and it should be posted where residents can see it. Radon has only recommended standards for multi-use facilities, but now it has decided to set recommendation standards for private homes. Therefore, it should now be possible to manage the radon in the environmental impact assessment phase as well as in the Post-environmental Impact Assessment. It should be possible to share health information such as the radon concentration and the risk of radon, and participation of health experts in the environmental impact assessment stage is required. Soil, air quality, hygiene and aerial items should be improved to take into account the effects of radon on human health during the environmental impact assessment process. If the level value of conncentration of radon shows above the recommended level, then alternative measures should be prepared and mitigation measures should be prepared as well.