• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.8 no.8
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• pp.291-298
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• 2017

This study is to examine the status and trends of regional elderly group(pre-elderly and elderly segment)'s suicide rates and socio-economic factors, to analyze the relevance of suicide rates and socio-economic factors, and to understand differential factors of elderly group's suicide rates between metropolitan areas and small-medium sized areas. For this, analysis on relevance between socio-economic factors and elderly group's suicide rates has been done using regional statistical data for the past ten years(2006~2015) by National Statistical office. According to research findings, Socio-economic factors such as welfare budget ratio, divorce rates, economic activity rates, and financial independent rates have shown different effects on elderly group's suicide rates by age range and regional characteristics. Based on these analyses, this study suggested policy tasks for alleviating suicide rates of elderly group.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.18 no.8
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• pp.51-61
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• 2018

This study was conducted to propose regional policy for reducing suicide rate by confirming the change of local suicide rate for 10 years from 2005 to 2015 and the effect of change of local environmental factors influencing the change. The main results are as follows. First, the change of city, county, and province suicide rate in 10 years showed that the suicide rate decreased in order of military district, city area, and district. Second, in the case of economic factors, local suicide rate decreased as the local tax burden per capita increased, and as the financial self - reliance increased. Third, in the case of the social integration factors, the local suicide rate decreased as the ratio of the basic livelihood recipient decreased. In addition, local suicide rate decreased as the number of elderly leisure welfare facilities increased. Fourth, in the case of the social demolition factor, the region where the divorce rate is increased, the depression experience rate is increased, and the region where the rate of one person is increasing, the local suicide rate is increased. Therefore, it is expected that the local suicide rate can be reduced through efforts to improve the economic capacity of the whole region, social integration and reduction of the social disintegration phenomenon in the region.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.14 no.11
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• pp.215-224
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• 2014

It is hardly surprising for the current elder generation to choose extreme measure, that is to commit suicide, because of various social or health problems caused by financial difficulties and diseases, for neither individuals nor the nation had not prepared for their later lives. Therefore, the number of elder suicide is rapidly increasing, so that it is becoming a big social issue. Research in various fields related to elderly suicide has been done due to recent huge interest, but most of them focused on microscopic factors and it is likely that most are in national level or individual level, so research about elderly suicide by regional areas is insufficient. Due to the nature of Korean administration system which is operated by each local government, study on elderly suicide by regional areas is acutely required. The purpose of this study is to draw policy suggestions of preventing suicide by analyzing current state of suicide rates in terms of sex(male elder vs female elder) and age(young old vs old old) in each 16 regions for 9years(from 2003 to 2011) and then analyzing interrelationships between the suicide rates and socio-economic factors.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.15 no.8
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• pp.4874-4880
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• 2014

This study examined the effects of cultural facilities and city parts on the regional suicide rates in Korea. Data of theaters, exhibition facilities, libraries and city parts was collected in 143 local areas governments. The number of theaters and the size of city parts had a significant effect on decreasing the regional suicide rates in the areas, and the number of exhibition facilities had partial impacts. This result suggests that the dynamic components of a culture and arts environments may work more effectively to relieve depression and stress and decrease the suicide rates. This study suggests that the cultural welfare environments can be found to solve the problem of the high suicide rates in Korea.

• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.147-164
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• 2010

In this paper, we reviewed the community-based approaches to suicide prevention and national strategies for the decrement of suicide rate, and made some suggestions to decrease the suicide rate in South Korea. Until now, efforts to understand and prevent suicide have been pursued singularly by specialized interest groups such as psychiatrists, psychologists, mental health practitioners, and private organizations with little interaction between them, resulting in narrow approaches toward suicide that existed in relative isolation to one another and that have been largely ineffective. To decline the suicide rate in South Korea, the people lived in Korea community ought to have enough knowledge related to suicide and have to cooperate with other people. Through these efforts, Korea community would have established social safety networks to improve the community 's mental health. The most important factor in suicide prevention and declining the suicide rate is reducing the stigma and increase the self-help seeking behaviors associated with suicide and mental health. Therefore, suicide is not an individual problem solved by suicidal patient, but a community's problem solved by community in recognizing, managing and preventing suicide.

• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.21-44
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• 2008

The main purpose of this study is to examine the effect of the family instability on the elderly suicide and to examine the change over time. An analytical model of causal structure was set up with residence, family instability and socioeconomic level as explanation variables for this study. The cause of death statistics and micro-data from the vital statistics for 1995, 2000 and 2005 were used. Family instability was measured through divorce, and the rate of elderly(male and female) suicide as well as the suicide rate of the elderly and those in their 20-50's was used for this analysis to examine the effect of divorce. This study hypothesized about family instability and elderly suicide through a literature review. This paper presents maps of the suicide rate by using GIS, and then ANOVA and regression analysis are carried out to verify a difference in the elderly suicide rate affected by residence and divorce. Divorce rate appears in most areas with a high level centering around metropolises except the central inland area. The rate of elderly suicide which stayed in only specific regions with a high level has increased as time went by, and the graph leveled high in most regions except the southwestern coast. In addition, the elderly suicide rate was increased rapidly in rural areas for the most recent 10 years. This shows the seriousness of problems of the aged in rural areas. Through the periods of economic crisis, a sudden increase in divorce causes family instability, which increase the suicide rate increasing. Divorce affects the elderly suicide rate and the 20-50s' suicide rate in the same way, and the stronger effect goes to the elderly rather than those in their 20-50s'. Regarding elderly suicide, the divorce has a different effect by gender, affecting males more than females. With these facts, we can draw the conclusion that family instability has the most significant effect on elderly males' suicide.

• Proceedings of the Korea Contents Association Conference
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• 2015.05a
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• pp.169-170
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• 2015

본 연구는 2013년 7월부터 2014년 6월까지 충남 S지역 응급의료센터에 내원한 자살시도환자 의 의무기록을 기반으로 한 일반적 특성, 응급진료결과 등을 조사하였다. 분석 결과 성별, 연령별, 자살시도환자의 전원율은 여성이 남성보다 높은 것으로 나타났으며, 사망률은 남성과 여성의 비율이 비숫하게 나타났고,연령에 있어서는 30-39세에서 가장 높게 나타났다. 본 연구는 자살률을 낮추기 위한 연령대에 맞는 효율적인 자살예방프로그램의 정책적 도입을 통하여 공중보건비용을 줄이는 사업계획에 활용하고자 한다.

• Journal of the Korean Data and Information Science Society
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.137-148
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• 2011

In this paper, we systematically investigate regional differences of the dead due to injuries in cities, towns and counties about transportation accidents, suicides and fall accidents, which have recently been an important issue of health problems in Korea, The data are from the Annual Report on the Cause of Death Statistics in Korea in 2008. They include the deaths over the age 19 from transportation accidents, suicides and fall accidents with the criterion of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases. Poisson HGLM is applied to estimate the mortality rate under the assumption that the number of deaths follow a Poisson distribution, by considering regions as random effects and by adjusting age, sex and standardized residence tax as fixed effects. Using the results of random effects prediction, the regional differences in cities, counties and towns are marked in disease mapping. The results showed that there were significant regional differences of mortality rates for transportation accidents and suicides, but no significant differences for fall accidents.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.11
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• pp.584-594
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• 2016

This research empirically analyzes, from an ecological perspective, whether socio-economic factors of the regions in which the elderly live have any actual influence on thoughts of suicide on the part of the elderly. Microscopic data either included outliers in part of the variables, including income and other variables of that type, from among source data from investigations into actual conditions of the elderly in 2014. Regarding macroscopic data, the indices that represent social and economic situations in each region, which were provided by KOSIS, were selected. Regarding the method of analysis, hierarchical or multi-level analysis models were applied by considering special hierarchical characteristics and heterogeneity at the personal and regional levels. The analyses showed that the following had statistically significant influences: 1. the cost-of-living index and the national basic supply and demand rate of the region; 2. the extent of natural disaster damage; and 3. the number of leisure and welfare facilities for the elderly, compared to the elderly population. Based on the results, proposals are made for systematic and practical endeavors in the community.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.143-152
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• 2014

Background: Previous studies showed that the characteristics of population and regions were related to the suicide rates. This study purposed to analyze the relationships between regional factors and suicide rates with spatial analysis model. Methods: This is a cross sectional study based on the statistics of 2011 which was extracted from the 229 City Gun Gu administrative districts in Korea. Cause of death statistics on each district was used to produce the age-, sex-adjusted mortality rates resulting from suicide. Regional characteristics were measured by the number of doctors engaged in medical institutions per 1,000 population, divorced people's rate per 1,000 population, number of marriages per 1,000 population, and percent of welfare budget in general accounting. Statistical analysis was performed by using SAS ver. 9.3 and ArcGIS ver. 10.2 was used for geographically weighted regression (GWR). Results: In ordinary least square (OLS) regression, divorced people's rate per 1,000 population had a significant positive relationship with the standardized mortality rate per 100,000 population. Marriages per 1,000 population and the proportion of welfare budget in the general accounting had significant negative relationships with the mortality rates. Meanwhile, GWR provided that the directions of variable, divorced people's rate per 1,000 population, were varied depending on regions. The adjusted $R^2$ was improved from the 0.32 in OLS to the 0.46 in GWR. Conclusion: Results of GWR showed that regional factors had different effects on the suicide rates depending on locations. It suggested that policy interventions for reducing the suicide rate should consider the regional characteristics in obtaining policy objectives.