• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.218-238
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• 2013

The objective of my paper is to investigate historical change in concepts of medical geography and to present its historical vision. Modern medical geography was established in the name of medical topography in Europe where it had to control tropical diseases in the course of exploration and voyages for colonial interests. England developed medical geography in the name of sanitary reform, France did so for civilizing mission, and geomedicine prevailed in Germany. The twentieth century witnessed two traditions of medical geography, with focus on disease ecology and medical care system, respectively. In addition, the paper emphasizes the significance of cartography of disease as knowledge as power. As the identity of place becomes increasingly important in relation to health at the around of the twenty-first century, geography of health has emerged as a new promising discipline independently of medical and public health geography.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.203-216
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• 2012

The aim of the research is to lead to suggestions on public health policy, to suggest the direction of accessibility to public health services in rural area through analyzing various health programs and health service system, health care facilities. Nepal's public health policy needs improvement in the quality of the health services as well as accessibility to the services to improve population quality.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.1-19
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• 2018

This study aims to analyze the regional patterns of user-provider in medical services for spatial improvement of national health care delivery system in south Korea. By using the National Health Insurance Service National Sample Cohort DB, the characteristics and changes in the medical service cases served outside of residing regions are found. In 2013 the rate of the cases served outside of residing regions was declined slightly and users of medical institutions outside of their residing area tended to have high income level relatively and to visit hospitals than clinics. And departments visited have changed from 2002.

• Journal of Cadastre & Land InformatiX
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• v.54 no.1
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• pp.49-61
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• 2024

South Korea faces a declining population and rural areas vanishing due to urbanization. Infrastructure, especially medical facilities, may not be sustainable for a long-term. This may impact vulnerable groups like children, teens, and the elderly, worsened by an aging population and low birth rates. Gangwon-do, notably Chuncheon-si, suffers from rural depopulation and poor healthcare self-sufficiency. In this paper, using 2SFCA(Two-Step Floating Catchment Area), we analyze healthcare access in Chuncheon-si, identifying gaps and vulnerable areas. LISA analysis helps map medical vulnerability, considering patient demand and supply. The Gini coefficient assesses spatial inequality. We propose distributing healthcare services and personnel based on age and region. The aim is to identify locations for additional hospitals catering to the elders, Infants, Children, and Adolescents,considering spatial accessibility.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.382-393
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• 2008

Tourism Industry can be treated as means for activating the economy of regions and must be considered as new alternative. As this trend, recently. the interest of tourism area connected with health industry is increasing gradually. And so, this study investigated the domestic abroad cases and established the promotion model of health tourism through experts' opinion to push ahead health tourism as strategy industry of Jeju region. Also this study proposed the planning to improve the competition ability of Jeju region by executing the fundamental research through the survey focused on tourists.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.394-417
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• 2008

The population of Korean Society is aging rapidly at a pace which is unprecedented in the world. This demographic change results in the various socioeconomic and cultural changes accompanied by spatial changes. The purpose of this study is to examine major characteristics of residential medical facilities for the elderly and the life of those using the facilities of the Capital Region in Korea. Major findings of the study are as follows. The characteristics of the location of residential medical facilities for the elderly and the life of those using the facilities are influenced not only by the mobility of the elderly. but also by the distance between the facilities and Seoul and also by the residential environments of the facilities. The location of the facilities and the mobility of the elderly, followed by the residential location of the family have an effect on everyday life of the elderly. Therefore, the location for residential medical facilities is not recommended to be far from the metropolitan area.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.428-441
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• 2008

This article verifies the actual conditions of the Wonju area medical devices cluster for presentation of method for increasing promotion. It examines the general status of companies, reason for location, competitive power and supporting system with a questionnaire survey and in-depth research. The Wonju area has 79 medical device companies. It comprised 9% of total sales and 11% of export sales of korea medical devices in 2007. For enhancement of the Wonju area medical devices ability to accumulate and attract of medical device companies and front-line and back-line industries, the followings is needed, a supply of highly qualified man power, a support base for developing modem technology and information marketing, adequate infrastructure for housing and education system, methodologies for sustaining new business and innovation fund-raising programs and marketing, and provide the highest degree of education for CEO.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.606-623
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• 2004

Emergency medical service pertains highly to the public service sector which has to be provided equally in a society and evenly in a spatial dimension by the government. However, emergency medical centers in Korea are inequally distributed in a space and also human capital, facility, and equipment for emergency medical centers show clear disparity among regions. This research analyzed the spatial balance of the demand supply level for emergency medical service in Seoul by constructing the potential demand surface map and supply surface map for this service. The surface map of demand-supply balance for emergency medical service was constructed by GIS based map algebra algorism. The results by this analysis very clearly reveal the spatial disparity of emergency medical service. The places where are over-represented by demand level compared to their supply level are estimated to require an additional establishment of emergency medical centers in the near future. While, the places where are over-represented by supply level compared to their potential demand for emergency medical services indicate the possibility of problems in the management of emergency medical centers because of a surplus in the supply of emergency medical services. The results of this research can be utilized in providing valuable information for the adequate provision of emergency medical centers and for the estimation of range on the service area of emergency medical services.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.71-84
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• 1998

Health has been seen as a resource necessary for both maintaining oneself and for living in a society pursuing high quality of life. Therefore, the medicare provision takes place of one of the most significant indexes for evaluating the regional welfare level. The purpose of this study is to investigate the locational characteristics of medicare service facilities. For the purpose, the distribution patterns of the medicare resources are analyzed both at the regional and local scales. The medicare resources are concentrated at the Metropolitan Seoul area in the regional scale, and they are also concentrated at the economic core areas in the local scale. Especially, higher level medicare resources, such as the general hospitals and medical specialists, show more concentration at the economic core areas than lower level services. This means that access to opportunities to receive higher level medicare is poorer in a more socially disadvantaged area. Since medicare service facilities are invested and operated by both private and public sectors, whose locational mechanisms are deferent, we analyzed the distribution patterns. Most medicare facilities are invested and managed by private sector in Korea, which is operated by market mechanism. This is related with the fact that the medicare facilities are concentrated at the economic core areas. The proportion of private sector is higher in the Metropolitan Seoul area, and thus this region shows stronger spatial disparity of medicare provision. In general, the medicare service facilities are located in the hierarchical structure, and thus the services levels and facility scales are differentiated by the hierarchy. We examined the hierarchical structure in the medicare service facilities in Korea. The referral medicare system has been applied with the assumption of the three level hierarchical structures in Korea. However, we could not find any distinct hierarchical structure in the scales of the medical service facilities.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.388-402
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• 2017

This paper presents an enhancement of the two-step floating catchment area (2SFCA) method for measuring spatial accessibility between three age groups, addressing the problem of uniform access within the catchment by applying multiple impedance function to account for distance decay and by applying weights to different age groups to account for medical service preference. The enhancement is provided to be another special care of the gravity model. When applying this modified three-step floating catchment area to measure the spatial access to emergency medical services in a study area, Chungnam province in South Korea, we find that it reveals the variation of spatial accessibility patterns between cities and rural areas and delineates more spatially explicit medical service shortage areas in southern Chungnam areas, especially remoted local rural areas. Finally, this method may be used to help the health and medical service divisions and the state departments improve designation of medical shortage areas. From the discussions, it is easy to implement in planning spatial policies of medical service and straightforward to be used as a basic, but core element for health and medical strategies in the province.