• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.426-432
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• 2009

Asbestos is a commercial term of natural occurring silicated minerals and forms long, thin fibers. Chrysotile, the serpentine asbestos, accounts for most use in commercial use. Asbestos is well known health hazard material and it is proved that inhalation of asbestos fibers leads to increased risk of developing several diseases such as lung cancer, mesothelioma, asbestosis. In these days, people most at risk for exposure are maintenance and construction workers and general citizens who are working on and close to the work area at which asbestos containing material is disturbing. Non asbestiform, though its chemical composition is same with regulated asbestos, is known to be less hazardous than asbestiform. Exposure guideline, 0.01 f/ml, is not safe level in terms of health risk. It is reasonable to take preventable action when asbestos is suspicious. In Korea, it is necessary to clarify the concept between hazard and risk, to differentiate asbestiform from non asbestiform, to make regulations for compensation for asbestos related patients, to manage future exposure for general citizens.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.245-246
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• 2022

Concerns about a global economic recession are rising following the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Accordingly, government entities, which are committed to overcome two barriers to severe inflation and economic recession, are showing high interest in spending management so as not to undermine fiscal soundness. Since the health care sector especially accounts for a large proportion of fiscal expenditure, it should be managed in a manner that the expense is appropriately spent. The National Health Insurance System and Healthcare System have secured international competitiveness and reliability by effectively responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. Likewise, considerable efforts should be made to reorganize the welfare and healthcare systems so that they can be sustainable during the post-COVID-19 era and the recession.

• Child Health Nursing Research
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.100-110
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• 2011

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to analyze papers published in the Journal of Korean Academy of Child Health Nursing (JKACHN) to identify the current state of child health nursing research and recommend directions for future research. Methods: Using analysis criteria developed by the researchers, 233 papers published in JKACHN between 2005 and 2009 were reviewed. Results: Both quantity and quality of these papers showed significant improvement compared to before 2005. The number of published papers, the proportion of intervention studies, and studies that involved children directly as participants had increased. However, published papers still leave much to be desired. Quantitative studies were dominant (91.4%) and many of these studies were survey designs (65.7%). Children, especially young children were still less likely to be direct participants. All experimental studies were quasi or pre-experimental studies. There were few qualitative research studies. Conclusion: Findings of this study indicate that strengthening peer review according to review guidelines will improve the quality of published papers and promote JKACHN as an international journal. Instead of proxy accounts from parents or nurses, research involving direct accounts by children is needed. Child-friendly data collection methods need to be developed and used by child health nurse researchers.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.200-207
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• 2008

Objectives : This study examined whether serious psychological distress (SPD) is associated with occupational injury among US employees. Methods : The employed population aged 18-64 years was examined (n=101,855) using data from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) 2000-2003. SPD was measured using the Kessler 6-item Psychological Distress Scale (K-6), a screening scale designed to identify persons with serious mental illness. The predicted marginal prevalence of psychological distress and occupational injury with the adjusted odds ratio were estimated using multiple logistic regression analyses. Results : The age-adjusted 3-month prevalence of occupational injury was $0.80{\pm}0.12%$ in workers with SPD, which was 37% greater than in workers without SPD ($0.58{\pm}0.03%$). The odds of occupational injury in workers with SPD were higher compared to workers without SPD (OR=1.34, 95% CI=0.93-1.92), after controlling for sex, age, race, education, occupation, and activity limitation by at least one medical condition. Male, service and blue collar occupation, and activity limiation by co-morbidity showed significantly higher odds of occupational injury for workers with SPD. Conclusions : The findings suggest that SPD accounts for an increased likelihood of occupational injury among US employees. A further longitudinal study is needed to differentiate the mechanism or causal pathways linking individual injury risk at the workplace, SPD, and socioeconomic factors.

• Journal of muscle and joint health
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.136-152
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• 1999

The purposes of this study were to identify the prevalence of fatigue. and factors influencing fatigue in women with rheumatoid arthritis. The subjects were 124 patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Most of all patients felt fatigue and mean score measured by Multidimensional Assessment of Fatigue was relatirely high. Fatigue was positively correlated with pain intensity, the number of pain sites, functional disability, depression. and sleep quality. A hierachical regression model was used to determine the variance which accounts for fatigue. Pain intensity, depression. sleep quality accounted for fatigue significantly. This finding indicates that pain influences fatigue through depression and sleep quality ; depression through sleep quality. The causative factors could be identified by further study of structural eqation model.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.115-120
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• 2017

The aim of this study is to develop construction safety and health management cost prediction model using support vector machine (SVM). To this end, theoretical concept of SVM is investigated to formulate the cost prediction model. Input and output variables have been selected by analyzing the balancing accounts for the completed construction project. In order to train and validate the proposed prediction model, 150 data sets have been gathered from field. Effects of SVM parameters on prediction accuracy are analyzed and from which the optimal parameter values have been determined. The prediction performance tests are conducted to confirm the applicability of the proposed model. Based on the results, it is concluded that the proposed SVM model can effectively be used to predict the construction safety and health management cost.

• Childhood Kidney Diseases
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.131-137
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• 2020

Nephrogenic diabetes insipidus (DI) is a rare disease in which the patient cannot concentrate urine despite appropriate or high secretion of antidiuretic hormone. Congenital nephrogenic DI is caused by the arginine vasopressin receptor 2 (AVPR2) or aquaporin 2 (AQP2) gene mutation; the AVPR2 genetic mutation accounts for 90% of the cases. National health screening for infants and children was launched in 2007 in order to prevent accidents and promote public health in infants and children in Korea. The program has been widely used as a primary clinical service in Korea. We treated an infant with faltering growth and delayed development detected by the National health screening program, and diagnosed the problem as nephrogenic DI caused by a rare missense mutation of c.490T>C on the AVPR2 gene. This case can be a good educational nephrogenic DI with a rare AVPR2 mutation, which was well screened and traced by the national health screening program for infants and children in Korea.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.138-175
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• 1994

The objectives of this study are (i) to review current situations and problems of the occupational health care system with emphasis on reforming the organizations and services, (ii) to find out a disirable occupational health system model based on integration of the occupational health system and the general health system, and finally, (iii) to suggest policy implications in occupational health services in the light of objectives of the newly emerging national health insurance reform in Korea. The major policy implications of this study are as follows: 1. In the long-run, within the occupational health system, preventive occupational health services such as employees' physical check-up, working environment examination, etc should financially be integrated with industrial accident compensation insurance. Currently separately paying expenses for each different category of services by the owner of an enterprise should be disbursed once through the payment of contributions of industrial accident compensation insurance. And then, it is necessary to strengthen and expand the role and function of industrial accident compensation insurance to cover preventive occupational health services. 2. The occupational health system should be integrated with general health system for its effective management. For the short-term policy, it is necessary to eliminate fiscal and access barrier between industrial accident compensation insurance and national health insurance by means of ex post facto settlement of accounts. The duplication of employees' physical check- ups between under the health insurance program and under the industrial health services must be coordinated in a manner either through mutual authorization by the two parties concerned or through merge into the health insurance. 3. The intent of current employees' physical check-up system focused on detection of occupational diseases, should be converted to an idea of medical surveillance system or biological moritoring system. The introduction of medical surveillance or biological monitoring system is a necessary condition to build a positive, effective and inexpensive occupational health care system.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2022

Background: This study aims to empirically compare and evaluate the current status of medical accessibility and health inequality between people with disabilities and without. We calculated the ACSC hospitalization rate, which is a medical accessibility index, for hypertension, a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease that accounts for more than 20% of deaths among people with disabilities using the 2016 National Health Insurance Big Data. Methods: The subjects of the study were a total of 601,520, including 64,018 people with disabilities and 537,501 people without. Logistic regression was performed to analyze the differences in hypertension hospitalization rates adjusted for demographic and sociological characteristics and disease characteristics using SAS 9.4 program. Results: Before adjusting for the characteristics, the hypertension hospitalization rate of people with disabilities was 1.55%, and the people without disabilities were 0.49%. After adjusting, it was found that people with disabilities were 2.11 times higher than people without disabilities, and it was statistically significant. Conclusion: The preventable hospitalization rate of people with disabilities is higher than that of people without, suggesting that the disabled have problems with access to medical care and health inequality. Therefore, the government's policy improvement is required to close the medical gap for the disabled.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.43-61
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• 2013

The purpose of this study is to analyze the relations between publicness and profitability of national university hospitals in Korea. Finance and management data from 2008 to 2010 were collected from balancing accounts and annual reports in 13 national university hospitals. The dependant variables are used profitability indicators which are operating margin, net profit to gross revenues, normal profit to gross revenues. The independent variables are publicness indicators which are medical social work, ratio of medical aid in inpatients, ratio of medical aid in outpatients, publicness index. The results show that operating margin, net profit to gross revenues in profitability indicators are affected by medical social work in publicness indicators. Normal profit to gross revenues in profitability indicators is strong related to medical social work and hospital province in publicness indicators. Based on these results, this study suggests implications to balance the publicness and the profitability in national university hospitals.