• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.141-156
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• 2013

Researchers in welfare services of local government in Korea have rather been on isolated issues as disables, childcare, aging phenomenon, etc. (Kang, 2004; Jung et al., 2009). Lately, local officials, yet, realize that they need more comprehensive welfare services for all residents, not just for above-mentioned focused groups. Still cases dealt with focused group approach have been a main research stream due to various reason(Jung et al., 2009; Lee, 2009; Jang, 2011). Social Security Information System is an information system that comprehensively manages 292 welfare benefits provided by 17 ministries and 40 thousand welfare services provided by 230 local authorities in Korea. The purpose of the system is to improve efficiency of social welfare delivery process. The study of local government expenditure has been on the rise over the last few decades after the restarting the local autonomy, but these studies have limitations on data collection. Measurement of a local government's welfare efforts(spending) has been primarily on expenditures or budget for an individual, set aside for welfare. This practice of using monetary value for an individual as a "proxy value" for welfare effort(spending) is based on the assumption that expenditure is directly linked to welfare efforts(Lee et al., 2007). This expenditure/budget approach commonly uses total welfare amount or percentage figure as dependent variables (Wildavsky, 1985; Lee et al., 2007; Kang, 2000). However, current practice of using actual amount being used or percentage figure as a dependent variable may have some limitation; since budget or expenditure is greatly influenced by the total budget of a local government, relying on such monetary value may create inflate or deflate the true "welfare effort" (Jang, 2012). In addition, government budget usually contain a large amount of administrative cost, i.e., salary, for local officials, which is highly unrelated to the actual welfare expenditure (Jang, 2011). This paper used local government welfare service data from the detailed data sets linked to the Social Security Information System. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the factors that affect social welfare spending of 230 local authorities in 2012. The paper applied multiple regression based model to analyze the pooled financial data from the system. Based on the regression analysis, the following factors affecting self-funded welfare spending were identified. In our research model, we use the welfare budget/total budget(%) of a local government as a true measurement for a local government's welfare effort(spending). Doing so, we exclude central government subsidies or support being used for local welfare service. It is because central government welfare support does not truly reflect the welfare efforts(spending) of a local. The dependent variable of this paper is the volume of the welfare spending and the independent variables of the model are comprised of three categories, in terms of socio-demographic perspectives, the local economy and the financial capacity of local government. This paper categorized local authorities into 3 groups, districts, and cities and suburb areas. The model used a dummy variable as the control variable (local political factor). This paper demonstrated that the volume of the welfare spending for the welfare services is commonly influenced by the ratio of welfare budget to total local budget, the population of infants, self-reliance ratio and the level of unemployment factor. Interestingly, the influential factors are different by the size of local government. Analysis of determinants of local government self-welfare spending, we found a significant effect of local Gov. Finance characteristic in degree of the local government's financial independence, financial independence rate, rate of social welfare budget, and regional economic in opening-to-application ratio, and sociology of population in rate of infants. The result means that local authorities should have differentiated welfare strategies according to their conditions and circumstances. There is a meaning that this paper has successfully proven the significant factors influencing welfare spending of local government in Korea.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.29 no.4 s.55
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• pp.831-842
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• 1996

Demand for high quality medical care has recently been increasing in step with high level of income and education. Patients prefer the use of large general hospitals to small community hospitals. Large hospitals, usually located at urban area, expand their capacities to cope with the increasing demand, therefore, they easily secure revenue necessary for growth and development of hospitals. However, small community hospitals are facing with serious financial difficulties caused from the reduction of patients in one hand and the inflation of cost in another. If small rural hospitals were closed, the closure would have negative impacts on local economies in addition to the decrease in access to medical care. Community leaders should have an insight on the contribution of community hospitals to local economies. They could make a rational decision on the hospital closure only with the understanding of hospital's contribution to the community. This study is designed to develop an economic model to estimate the contribution of rural hospital to local economies, and also to apply this model with a specific hospital. The contribution of a hospital to local economies consists of two elements, direct effect and multiplier effects. The direct impacts include hospital's local purchasing power, employee's local purchasing power, and the consumption of patients coming from outside the community. The direct impact induces multiplication effect in the local economy. The seed money invested to other industries grows through economic activities in the region. This study estimated the direct effect with the data of expenditure of the case hospital. The total effect was calculated by multiplied the direct effect with a multiplier. The multiplier was drown from the ratio of marginal propensity of income and expenditure. Beside the estimation of the total impacts, the economic effect from the external resources was also analyzed by the use of the ratio of patients coming outside the region. The results are as follows. 1. The direct economic contribution of the hospital to the local economy is 1,104 million won. 2. The value of multiplier in the region is 2.976. 3. The total economic effect is 3,286 million won, and the multiplication effect is 2,182 million won. 4. The economic contribution from the external resources is 245 million won which is 7.5% of the total economic effect.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.8
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• pp.705-714
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• 2020

This study aims to investigate the main factors that affected the government health expenditures in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), United Arab Emirates (UAE), Oman, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait), during the period from 2005 to 2019. The study employs a panel data technique in order to monitor the pooled determinant variables of healthcare expenditures in these countries. The study's results indicate, by using FMOLS approach for panel data, that the average healthcare expenditures per capita in GCC countries have a positive and a significant relationship with the government revenues, the size of the population, and the governments' public debt. The positive and the significant relationships of governments' public debt may be explained even if the governments of the GCC countries suffer from a budget deficit; the GCC countries continue to increase the healthcare expenditure. The study suggests that the policymakers of the GCC countries must take into consideration those variables when they develop their healthcare policies. Also, the GCC countries urgently need to have high levels of foreign exchange reserves to maintain the expected level of spending on the healthcare sector, because their public revenues depend mainly on the oil revenues, which are fluctuating continuously.

• Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.220-229
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• 2005

The studies on nutrition counseling and screening have been based on stand-alone program. This study introduces the nutrition counseling and screening management system. This system offers convenient user interface and the synthetic results of counseling and screening with various utilities, The system for nutrition counseling and screening consists of the general information of clients, the anthropometry data, the calculation of obesity and body mass index, the state of eating habits, the computation of calorie expenditure, the clinical symptoms, the convenient method for analysis of calorie and nutrients, nutrition prescription and alcoholism screening tests. Having interoperability, these functions preserve the information of clients and manage the historical data. The system inserts, stores and generates the synthetic information of clients, so it is able to provide suitable and efficient counseling to clients. The proposed system gathers various information of clients. With accumulated client data, it does the nutrition education, screening and counseling simultaneously. Managing clients' information connected to database, it can provide systematic and formal information. It is possible for the system to retrieve information and counsel in real time. It is expected that the nutrition counseling management system can improve the national health with animated nutrition counseling. (J Community Nutrition 7(4) : $220\∼229$, 2005)

• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.125-137
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• 2011

Objectives: This paper estimates willingness to quit smoking(WQS) cigarette price among Korean adults and examines the factors related to WQS price. Methods: Data on 799 participants in a random dial telephone survey with questions designed based on Contingent Valuation Method were analyzed by conducting t-test, ${\chi}^2$ test, and OLS. Results: The median and the mean of the distribution of WQS prices were 3,000 won and 3,862 won, respectively. Age, household income, the amount of smoking, and the length of smoking period were related to WQS prices. Conclusions: The results show that increase in cigarette price could be an effective policy tool to make smokers quit smoking when the increase in cigarette prices is substantial enough to be over WQS prices. This implies that with its effect on low-income smokers to consider quitting smoking or reducing the amount of smoking, increase in cigarette price can be income-progressive in the long run by reducing the amount of expenditure spent on cigarette purchase.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.45 no.5
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• pp.291-300
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• 2012

Objectives: We aimed to estimate the annual socioeconomic burden of coronary heart disease (CHD) in Korea in 2005, using the National Health Insurance (NHI) claims data. Methods: A prevalence-based, top-down, cost-of-treatment method was used to assess the direct and indirect costs of CHD (International Classification of Diseases, 10th revision codes of I20-I25), angina pectoris (I20), and myocardial infarction (MI, I21-I23) from a societal perspective. Results: Estimated national spending on CHD in 2005 was $2.52 billion. The majority of the spending was attributable to medical costs (53.3%), followed by productivity loss due to morbidity and premature death (33.6%), transportation (8.1%), and informal caregiver costs (4.9%). While medical cost was the predominant cost attribute in treating angina (74.3% of the total cost), premature death was the largest cost attribute for patients with MI (66.9%). Annual per-capita cost of treating MI, excluding premature death cost, was $3183, which is about 2 times higher than the cost for angina ($1556). Conclusions: The total insurance-covered medical cost ($1.13 billion) of CHD accounted for approximately 6.02% of the total annual NHI expenditure. These findings suggest that the current burden of CHD on society is tremendous and that more effective prevention strategies are required in Korea.

• 한국노년학
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.349-367
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• 2014

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between socio-economic position(SEP), environmental exposures, and health of older people in Korea. This study used the data from 'Environmental Exposures and Their Health Effect in Korean Elderly Population'. The sample includes a total of 563 elderly people who were 60 years of age or older. Data on SEP, environmental exposure, and health impact were collected and analyzed using descriptive statistics and multivariate regressions. As a result, study participants' SEP including age, family type, monthly expenditure, type of house, and region was significantly associated with environmental exposure. Also, while adjusting for SEP, environmental exposure such as allowing indoor smoking was associated with self-rated health and depression of study participants. The study findings showed inequality in environmental exposure and health outcomes by SEP in Korean elderly. Environmental exposure was associated with health outcome even after adjusting SEP, and this implied that environmental exposure could be a critical factor in explaining heath inequality by SEP. Further studies are necessary to better understand the causal relationships among SEP, environmental exposure, and health outcomes.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.29 no.9
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• pp.991-1002
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• 1996

The objectives of this study were to obtain normative data for 45 mother-daughter pairs on spine, femur(neck, ward's triangle, trochanter) and total body BMD (bone mineral density) measured by dual energy X-ray absorptiometry, anthropometric measurement, body composition, biochemical markers, nutrient intakes and energy expenditure, to determin the interrelations of these factors within each group, to measure familial resemblance for each variable. We observed significantly positive correlations between height, weight, head, hip and calf circumferences, tricep, femur and calf skinfold thickness, total lean body mass(=weight-total fat body mass-bone mineral content), protein and fat intakes, Ca index, serum total protein and albumin of monter-daughter pairs(p<.05-p<.001). Among mothers, age, osteocalcin, higher, weight, Ca and energy intakes were predictors of BMDs. Among daughters, weight and energy intake were predictors of BMDs. The BMD in lumbar spine(r=.48, p<.01), femoral neck(r=.38, p<.05), ward's triangle(r=.36, p<.05) of the mothers were significantly correlated with those of the daughters, after adjustment for mother's age, hight, weight, osteocalcin, Ca and energy intakes and daughter's weight, energy intake. In regression analyses, mother's BMD also were positively associated with daughter's BMD in lumbar spine, femoral neck, ward's triangle. Our findings support that mothers with low BMD tended to have daughters with low BMD. In the age groups studied, as well genetic factors as environmental factors may have an important role in determining BMD. This study suggests that women may successfully enhance their genetically determined BMD through adequate nutrient intakes and weight bearing exercise.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.50-63
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• 1999

This study was conducted with 20 female gymnasts and 23 age-matched controls to examine the relationship of diet, menstrual function and bone mineral density (BMD). The results obtained are summarized as follows : Energy intake of gymnasts was 968.9$\pm$421.4kcal, and energy expenditure was 2091.4$\pm$361kcal showing negative energy balance(-1,122.5$\pm$534.6kcal). The average intakes of calcium, iron, vitamin A, thiamin, riboflavin and niacin did not meet the Recommended Dietary Allowances for their age groups. Mean age at menarche in gymnasts is 15.8$\pm$1.2 years compared with 11.8$\pm$2.8 years in age-matched controls. The profile of estradiol, progesterone, and luteinizing hormone was lower than age-matched controls but not significant. Athletic amenorrheic gymnasts(n=12) have the menstrual irregularity(n=10) and amenorrhea(n=2). A number of variables as such nutritional deficiency in diet, negative energy blasnce and hypogonadotropic hormonal status were included. The bone mineral density (BMD) of female gymnasts were significantly higher than controls for the lumbar neck(p<0.001), trochanter(p<0.01), and Ward's triangle(p<0.001), but there were no significant differences for the lumbar spine and forearm. The lumbar spine BMD had a positive correlation with age and lean body weight. The femoral neck BMD was significantly associated with age, group and lean body mass. The trochanter BMD had significant relationship with group, body mass index, energy expenditure and follicular stimulating hormone. Ward's triangle BMD were related to body mass index and follicular stimulating hormone. The significant association was deterced between forearm BMD and age and lean body weight. The major finding of this investigation is that the BMD of gymnasts were higher than age-matched controls despite the fact that gymnasts as a group had inadequate dietary calcium and a higher propensity to have an interruption of their menstrual cycle. These data indicate that grymnsts involved in sports producing significant impact loading on the skeleton had greater femoral neck, trochanter and Ward's triangle bone density than age-matched controls.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.35 no.6
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• pp.650-657
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• 2002

In order to provide basic data for the means to improve food situation and nutritional status of those supported by the National Basic Livelihood Security System (NBLSS), we examined household food insecurity and nutritional status of children under the support of NBLSS. This study included 209 children aged 3-12 years (99 boys and 110 girls) and their caretakers. We measured house food insecurity using Radimer/cornell Scale, children's body sizes and nutrient intake by semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire, and caretakers' nutritional management skills. Only 9.6％ of the households were in food secured (FS) while 8.1％ were in household food insecured, but without hunger (HFI), 42.1％ were in adult food insecured with hunger (AFI), and 40.2％ were in child hungry (CH). Important predictors of food security were nutritional management skills of the caretakers as well as their education, but neither income nor food expenditure of the households. Mean energy intake of the children was 86.0％ of the Korean Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA). Intakes of protein, phosphorous, vitamin A and B$_1$ were relatively high ranging from 112.3％ to 124.4％ of the RDAs while those of calcium, iron, niacin, vitamin C were low showing 74.8-83.3％ of the RDAs. Height, weight and weight/height ratio were close to the reference levels. Lower nutrient intakes of children were observed as the households were more food insecured. However, nutrient intakes and body sizes of children did not differ as a function of household socioeconomic status representing by income, food expenditure and caretakers' education. Results of this study suggest the importance of food security and nutritional management skills for the children's nutrient intakes. Concerning this matter, a need for nutrition education in the program for NBLSS was discussed.