• Journal of the Korean Dietetic Association
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.64-77
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• 2017

This study was conducted to develop a nutritional education program based on the health belief model to improve nutritional status among Vietnamese female marriage immigrants in Korea. The education program was developed through literature review, focus group interviews, expert consultation, and pilot tests. Based on theoretical requirements and needs of beneficiaries, the education program was consisted of 16 sessions with nine topics: 'how to evaluate own dietary habits and nutritional status', 'health problems according to dietary habits and nutritional status', 'understanding six food groups', 'healthy eating plan', 'understanding food cultures of Korea and Vietnam', 'traditional and seasonal Korean foods', 'how to cook Korean food', 'nutrition management of family members', and 'practicing of healthy dietary life'. Program contents in each session consisted of activities that could induce outcome and value expectations, self-efficacy, perceived benefits, and barriers and cues to actions regarding dietary behavior. This nutritional education program based on the health belief model would be helpful to implement healthy diet behaviors in Vietnamese marriage immigrants and their families. Extension of these nutritional education programs to health centers and multicultural family support centers would improve the current poor nutrition status of Vietnamese marriage immigrant women. Further studies are needed to validate our program.

• Journal of the Korean Dietetic Association
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.59-73
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• 2019

This study examined the possible causes of nutritional inadequacy in Vietnamese immigrant women married to Korean husbands. Qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted with a sample of 34 Vietnamese marriage immigrant women and 17 Korean spouses participating in or having experienced Nutrition Plus from four Community Health Centers in Seoul, Korea. The study results showed that the nutritional staus of the Vietnamese marriage immigrant women was affected by the unfamiliar Korean food (cultural factor), low household income (economical factor), difficulty in purchasing Vietnamese food (environmental factor), and low accessibility to nutrition support systems (social factor). The Korean husbands' nutritional status was affected by the unfamiliar Vietnamese food (cultural factor), low household income (economic factor), and irregular working conditions (social factors). Nutritional interventions as a public service to the community needs to be developed and applied. Suggestions are presented regarding the future efforts to better understand and meet the nutrition needs of intermarried couples to respond to their heterogeneous needs and deliver adequate nutrition service to ever increasing intermarried families.

• Journal of Korean Public Health Nursing
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.375-388
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• 2022

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify the factors influencing depression among married Vietnamese immigrant women living in Korea. Methods: This study was a retrospective review of the dataset from the Korean 2018 National Multicultural Family Survey. The data were analyzed using the Rao-Scott x² test and multiple logistic regression using complex samples analysis. Results: The proportion of married Vietnamese immigrant women subjects in Korea who experienced depression was 27.7%. The factors affecting depression were age, length of stay in Korea, living area, economic status, difficulties in using medical care, difficulties faced during their stay in Korea and Korean language skills relationship with spouse and parents-in-law marital conflicts, cultural differences, their experience of social discrimination, life satisfaction, and meeting with friends from their homeland. Conclusion: The findings in this study indicate that the prevention of depression in married immigrant women in Korea could be aided by acculturation programs that deal with the relationships with their spouses and social supports.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.49 no.3
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• pp.179-188
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• 2016

Purpose: This cross-sectional study aimed to document the dietary behaviors, dietary changes, and health status of female marriage immigrants residing in Gwangju, Korea. Methods: The survey included 92 female immigrants attending Korean language class at a multi-cultural family support center. General characteristics, health status, anthropometric data, dietary behaviors, and dietary changes were collected. Results: Mean age of subjects was 31.3 years, and home countries of subjects were Vietnam (50.0%), China (26.0%), Philippines (12.0%), and others (12.0%). Frequently reported chronic diseases were digestive diseases (13.2%), anemia (12.1%), and neuropsychiatry disorder (8.9%). Seventeen percent of the subjects was obese ($BMI{\geq}25kg/m^2$). Dietary score by Mini Dietary Assessment was 3.45 out of 5 points. Dietary scores for dairy foods, meat/fish/egg/bean intake, meal regularity, and food variety were low, and those for fried foods and high fat meat intake were also low. Thirty-three percent of subjects answered that they have changed their diet and increased their consumption of fruits and vegetables after immigration. Length of residence in Korea was positively associated with BMI and waist circumference. Length of residence tends to be positively associated with dietary changes and obesity as well as inversely associated with disease prevalence. Conclusion: The study shows that length of residence is inversely related to disease prevalence. However, this association is thought to be due to the relatively short period of residence in Korea and thus the transitional phase to adapting to dietary practices. As the length of residence increases, disease patterns related to obesity are subject to change. Healthy dietary behaviors and adaptation to dietary practices in Korea in female marriage immigrants will not only benefit individuals but also their families and social structure. Therefore, varied, long-term, and target-specific studies on female marriage immigrants are highly needed.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.589-602
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• 2012

The Korean society has gone through a dramatic change in its population, with rapidly increasing number of multicultural families through international marriages since 1990s. This study investigated the differences between multicultural families and Korean families in three areas related to dietary behaviors: diet-related behaviors and perception, and food preferences. A cross-sectional analysis was performed in 500 Koreans from Korean families and 104 couples from the multicultural families with Vietnamese wives. More subjects from multicultural families grew up in the countryside, received less education and also had lower income than the subjects from Korean families. Multicultural families ate traditional Korean meals more often at home and dined out less often than Korean families. The multicultural families focused more attention on nutritional aspects of their diets than Korean families. The Vietnamese wives in multicultural families favored Vietnamese foods but they rarely ate those foods in Korea despite an easy accessibility to Vietnamese ingredients. In conclusion, the multicultural families had more traditional Korean dietary patterns than Korean families, which could have been influenced by their socioeconomic factors. Further research with a quantitative analysis is needed in future studies to understand the effect of dietary patterns on nutritional status and quality of life in multicultural and Korean families.

• Journal of the Korean housing association
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.1-8
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• 2013

Recently international marriage has been increasing steadfastly in Korea and its diversity of nationality has been expanding also. Korean government and academic circles are actively studying on such trends in population to find out proper measures to cope with such social changes. But their studies on improving the residential environment that is the base of the essential three factors of life, clothing, food and housing are not sufficient enough. Therefore it is necessary to study in depth and diversity about the residential environments of multi-culture families that are the base of their life. It is necessary to comparatively study the residential status and demands of these immigrants by marriage. The purpose of this study is to comparatively study the residential status and demand of immigrant women by marriage according to their nationalities. The objects of this study are the immigrant women by marriage from China, Vietnam and Cambodia who take the high portion of immigrant women in Jeonju-si and survey was used as study method. The result of this study revealed that the general characteristics, residential status and demands of immigrant women showed certain differences and the direction of residential plans for them in future based on these differences was proposed. This study is meaningful as basic information to improve the residential conditions of the multi-culture families in order to enhance their quality of life in preparation for the coming society of multi-culture.

• Journal of Digital Contents Society
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.75-83
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• 2018

Multicultural family members have difficulty in educating their children due to language differences. In order to solve these difficulties, it is necessary to provide smart translation services that enable them easily and quickly access real-life vocabularies. However, the current automatic translation technology is being developed in dominant languages such as English, Chinese, and Japanese. There are also limitations to translating special-purpose terms such as documents of schools and instructions of public institutions. In this study, we propose a real-time automatic word translation service for multicultural family members who understand beginner level Korean. The service automatically analyzes the semantics of each word in the Korean sentences and provides a word-by-word translation. This study includes semantic analysis research for Korean language, building multilingual translation knowledge, and fusion study of language education. We evaluated the word translation service for migrant women from Vietnam and Japan and obtained meaningful evaluation results.

• The Journal of the Society of Korean Medicine Diagnostics
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.88-100
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• 2021

Objectives The purpose of this study was to examine the daily lifestyle of Vietnamese immigrant women and to find out if they could affect health-related quality of life improvement. Methods The subjects of this study were 273 women who immigrated to Korea from Vietnam. This study was conducted at Daejeon and nearby Healthy Family Support Centers from September 2019 to January 2020 with the cooperation of the Daejeon City Healthy Family Support Center. Correlation analysis was performed between lifestyle and quality of life, and ANOVA analysis was performed to confirm the difference in health-related quality of life scores for each subgroup of dietary nutrition, sleep quality, and physical activity. A regression analysis was conducted to investigate the contribution of dietary nutrition, sleep quality, and physical activity to the quality of life of Vietnamese immigrant women. The significance level was p<0.05. Results Physical activity showed significant correlations with Euro Quality of Life -Visual Analogue Scale (EQ VAS), sleep quality with EQ VAS and Euro Quality of Life-5Dimension (EQ-5D) Index, and dietary nutrition with EQ-5D Index. There were significant differences in EQ VAS and EQ-5D Index scores for each sleep quality subgroup, and a significant difference in EQ VAS scores for each activity subgroup. The quality of sleep was found to have the greatest effect on EQ VAS and EQ Index of Vietnamese immigrant women, and physical activity on EQ VAS and dietary nutrition had some influence on EQ-5D Index. Conclusions Quality of sleep is closely related to health-related quality of life, and plays an important role in health-related quality of life for Vietnamese immigrant women.

• Journal of the korean academy of Pediatric Dentistry
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.137-145
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to obtain the data for dental caries experience and occlusal pattern to utilize these data for motivating oral health promotion and activating oral health care programme in preschool children of multicultural family. Caries prevalence on primary teeth was surveyed for 3-5 years old 190 children of multicultural families in Chonbuk province. The results were as follows : 1. Dental caries prevalence rate of primary teeth (dmf rate) was 61.7% at 3 years of age, 88.7% at 4 years of age, and 92.6% at 5 years of age (p>0.05). 2. Average score of dmft index was 2.22 at 3 years of age, 4.97 at 4 years of age, and 6.62 at 5 years of age (p>0.05). 3. Most of the caries-prevailed tooth was maxillary primary central incisor and showed 28.8% at 3 years of age, 56.7% at 5 years of age. 4. dmft index and dmfs index of children of Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Filipinos women were higher than those of Chinese and Japanese. 5. In sagittal primary molar relationship, flush terminal plane type was 82.6%, distal step type was 5.2% and mesial step type was 8.4%. This study is the first report for children of multicultural families in Korea. More attention for children of multicultural families will be needed in aspect of oral disease prevention and treatment.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.64 no.2
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• pp.241-271
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• 2012

This questionnaire study examined the processes linking bicultural identity to self-positivity derived from taking multiple perspectives that, in turn, affects marital well-being among marriage immigrant women. Data were drawn from 281 marriage immigrant women residing in large cities in Korea including Seoul metropolitan area. Results of covariance structural analyses supported most study hypotheses: As predicted, bicultural identity contributed to self-positivity composed of taking multiple perspectives, self-acceptance and self-regulation, and the self-positivity, in turn, promoted marital well-being, conceptualized as marital satisfaction and marital stability. Bicultural identity also showd a significant direct positive effect on marital well-being. In path analyses conducted with observed variables, Korean cultural identity and home cultural identity both had significant positive effects on multiple perspective taking, through which these identity variables were positively related to self-acceptance and self-regulation. While self-acceptance was, as expected, positively related to marital satisfaction, thus indirectly promoting marital stability, the positive effect of self-regulation on marital stability was not signifiant. Taking multiple perspectives was found to promote marital well-being through encouraging both self-acceptance and consensus with a spouse. The effect of Korean cultural identity on marital well-being was found to be completely mediated by self-acceptance and consensus with a spouse fostered by taking multiple perspectives. In contrast, the effect of home cultural identity on marital well-being was partly mediated by such paths, and home cultural identity also had a positive direct effect on marital satisfaction and a negative direct effect on marital stability, suggesting its effect on marital well-being is complicated. Yet total effects of both types of cultural identity on marital well-being turned out to be positive. These results suggest that bicultural identity, supposed to be a psychological strength among marriage immigrant women, may indeed function as psychological resources that promote positive attitude as well as marital well-being. Finally, implications for multicultural social work practice are discussed.