• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.23-31
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• 2022

Background: Potato is the main crop of Ardabil Plain (accounting for one-fifth of potato production in Iran). Its health hazard risk to farmers is rising due to the increasing rate of pesticide use. The present study analyzes potato farmers' health hazard risk in the use of chemical pesticides. Methods: The rate of pesticide use by farmers (n = 370) was first compared with the recommended dosage (on pesticide label). Then, a composite index was employed to estimate the health hazard risk of farmers during pesticide use, and the variables accounting for pesticide overuse and nonoveruse were analyzed. Safety behavior was examined in four steps, namely of pesticide purchase and storage, preparation, application, and postapplication. Results: It was found that 74.6 percent of potato farmers used pesticides in higher concentrations than the recommended dosage. The higher average rate of pesticide use versus recommendation (label instruction) was related to Chlorpyrifos and Trifluralin, and the highest average health hazard risk among farmers was related to the use of Chlorpyrifos and Metribuzin. Farmers with a higher risk of health hazard displayed much lower safety behavior than the other farmers at all steps of pesticide use. Conclusion: The most important variables discriminating the health hazard risk of farmers' overuse included health behavior identity, attitude, knowledge and awareness, and cues to action. Therefore, using social media, holding local exhibitions, and engaging local leaders and skilled farmers in the region to improve farmers' attitudes and health behavior identity toward the dangers of chemical pesticides can play a significant role in motivating farmers' display of overuse preventive behaviors.

• Journal of East-West Nursing Research
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.161-171
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• 2023

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to verify the effectiveness of the Environmental Hazards Exposure Prevention Program for Mothers with Young Child (EHEPP-MYC) and to provide basic data for environmental health projects in the community. Methods: EHEPP-MYC was developed based on the protection motivation theory. A quasi-experimental design was applied to evaluate the effectiveness of the program. The number of study participants was 30 in the experimental group and 31 in the control group. The intervention applied to the experimental group consisted of lectures as the main method, current affairs programs, discussions, booklets, animations, and practical training. The program was held twice a week for a total of 4 sessions of 60 minutes each. The effect of applying the program was measured three times through surveys (before, immediately after, and two weeks after the intervention) and analyzed through repeated measures ANOVA. Results: The EHEPP-MYC had significant effects on preventive behavior, perceived severity, perceived vulnerability, self-efficacy, response efficacy, and response costs at three time points. Conclusion: EHEPP-MYC has been shown to be effective in promoting environmental hazards prevention behaviors among mothers of young child. EHEPP-MYC can be used as baseline data for projects developing programs to prevent exposure to environmental hazards and improve the environmental health of communities.

• Journal of the Korean Society of School Health
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.12-21
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• 2024

Purpose: This study aimed to provide basic data for future infectious disease prevention educational programs targeting preschoolers by verifying the effects of the 2023 Home-visiting Infectious Disease Prevention Class Project for Preschoolers. Methods: The study is a descriptive survey that analyzed educational satisfaction of kindergarten teachers and the activity reports of visiting teachers. The effectiveness of the education on the children's side was evaluated with a quasi-experimental approach using pre- and post-test design. Data collection was conducted from September 6 to November 10, 2023. The data from 96 kindergarten teachers, 100 activity reports written by visiting teachers, 56 children in the experimental group, and 50 children in the control group were analyzed. Results: As a result of analyzing the satisfaction survey results of the kindergarten teachers and the activity reports submitted by the visiting teachers, all questions received a very positive evaluation with 4 or more out of 5 points. In addition, the children in the experimental group showed statistically significant positive changes both in hand-washing accuracy and their awareness of immunity. Conclusion: The Home-visiting Infectious Disease Prevention Class Project for Preschoolers is of great educational significance and is expected to be a useful educational intervention that can improve infection prevention behaviors and show practical preventive effects in preschoolers so that they can be prepared for various infectious diseases in the future.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.1690-1698
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• 2012

As alcohol use is one of the most important risk factors for injuries, this study was intended to clarify and evaluate any relationship between drinking patterns and the incidence rates/specific characteristics of injuries in adult populations, using a widely accepted tool, the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (chronic alcohol drinking behaviors measurement, hereinafter the AUDIT) developed by the World Health Organization to help to assess the behaviors in a more accurate and reliable manner. This study used the data collected from the 2009 Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES), in which 7,511 of 7,893 adult participants aged ${\geq}19$ years answered the questions about injuries, and excluding 104 non-respondents, 6,258 of participants in the questionnaire survey of drinking patterns were finally analyzed. The incidence rates and specific characteristics of injuries as classified by the AUDIT categories (i.e., body regions, types and mechanisms) were assessed and estimated in terms of their relative risk using t-test, ANOVA, and logistic regression. SPSS 19.0 statistical package software was employed for statistical analyses. These analyses indicate that the incidence rates of overall injuries were significantly higher in male respondents than in female respondents. The risks of alcohol use related injuries were 8.3 times higher in male respondents than in female ones. Regarding educational background, high school graduates showed the highest rates in the AUDIT with significant difference from the other groups. The married group and the group of respondents having monthly income estimated at KRW 2.01 to 3 million also showed the highest rates in the AUDIT compared to the other groups, indicating statistically significant difference. Significantly increased in problematic drinkers and those with alcohol dependence, the incidence rate of injuries body regions was 0.0371 in the head/neck, and with respect to the AUDIT and the mechanisms of external causes of injuries, transport accidents ranked first, followed by slippage, others, crash and fall. In regard to the classified types of injuries, it was statistically significant in others (e.g., laceration, contusion, addiction, or penetrating wound). In conclusion, the mechanisms of external causes of injuries as well as injuries attributed to alcohol use are very important, and a strategy is required to reduce such the injuries in the manner of decreasing the frequency of drinking after motivation by professional counsellors.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.229-242
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• 2013

Objectives: The objective of this study was to identify the influence of shift work on sleep quality, daytime sleepiness, and perceived errors during nursing work among hospital nurses. Methods: The study subjects were 209 hospital nurses working in two general hospitals in South Korea. The data were collected through self-administered questionnaires in May 2013. Sleep quality was measured using Korea Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI-K), daytime sleepiness was measured using Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS), and perceived errors in past 6 months during nursing duty hours with the tool developed in this study. Results: The sleep quality was significantly worse among rotating shift nurses when compared to fixed day duty nurses. However, the odds ratio (OR) of 1.92 [95% confidence interval(CI): 0.58-6.37] adjusted for sociodemographic variables, health behaviors, and working environment in logistic regression was not significant. There was no significant difference in the daytime sleepiness between rotating shift nurses and fixed day duty nurses in both simple and multivariable analyses. There were significantly more perceived errors in rotating shift nurses than fixed day duty nurses. However, the OR of 1.26 (95% CI: 0.38-4.21) adjusted for sociodemographic variables, health behaviors, working environment, sleep quality, and daytime sleepiness in logistic regression was not significant. Depression (OR=3.31, 95% CI: 1.11-9.84) and daytime sleepiness(OR=1.18, 95% CI: 1.07-1.30) were significantly associated with perceived errors in logistic regression. Conclusion: This study suggested shift work among hospital nurses had no independent influence of sleep quality, daytime sleepiness, and perceived errors. However, daytime sleepiness had independent influence of perceived errors. More studies are warranted to achieve more reliable conclusion.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.263-277
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• 2005

Objectives: This study aimed to reveal the oral health conditions based on the dental health behaviors of a community-dwelling elderly. Methods: The subjects included 206 rural dwellers(100 men & 106 women) aged over 65 years old, who received dental health check-ups in the local public health center and its branches attached to 6 respective Myons of Chunchongnamdo Province, during the 2-month period from Jan. 1st to Feb. 28th, 2005. They were examined by dentists and given self-administered questionnaires asking about their dental heaith behaviors and subjective symptoms of gingival bleeding. Results: The oral health conditions based on dental health behavior showed that those who have not taken dental health service a year were found to have significantly greater number of missing teeth(p=0.002), DMFT(p=0.002) and CPITN(p=0.018), and those who have not observed intra-oral conditions a week to have significantly less number of filled teeth(p=0.002) and significantly greater number of missing teeth(p=0.000) and CPITN (p=0.000) than their respective counterparts. In terms of brushing, those who brushed their teeth below "3 times/day" were found to have significantly greater number of decayed teeth(p=0.000), missing teeth(p=0.000), DMFT(p=0.000) and CPITN(p=0.000) than their counterparts. In terms of time spent in brushing, those who spends "below 3 minutes" had significantly greater number of missing teeth(p=0.002) and DMFT(p=0.041), and significantly less number of filled teeth(p=0.036). According to the use of aid tools for cleaning teeth, the group who don't use them had significantly greater number of DMFT(p=0.041) and CPITN(p=0.018) than its counterpart. Classified by smoking habits, smoking groups had significantly greater number of decayed teeth(p=0.035) and CPITN(p=0.001) than non-smoking groups. Multiple regression analysis of the study data revealed that the significant factors influencing number of decayed teeth were number of brushing, sex and intra-oral observation (explanatory power of 14.2%). The significant factors for number of filled teeth were sex, intra-oral observation, use of aid tools, frequency of brushing, subjective health conditions and drinking of sweet beverages(explanatory power of 18.2%), those for number of missing teeth, number of brushing and age(explanatory power of 13.9%) those for DMFT, number of brushing, sex, use of dental service, age(explanatory power: 13.5%), and those for CPITN included smoking habits, use of dental service, use of aid tools (explanatory power: 10.8%). Conclusions: The study results revealed that the dental health behavior of the elderly population is in poor conditions and their consequent intra-oral health conditions are not good. To improve their oral conditions, public campaign and education will be needed to modify unhealthy dental health behaviors.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.213-225
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• 2005

Objectives: This study was carried out to evaluate the socio-demographic, style of living, and health related behaviors of community residents between urban and rural areas in Jeonbuk province. Methods: The data was obtained from 2,086 residents who lived in Jeonbuk province from July to September 2001 which included 1,238 residents in urban area and 848 residents in rural area. Results: The results were as follows; There were significant differences socio-demographic characteristics including occupation and educational level of the populations between urban and rural areas. In the urban populations, housewives, professional classes, and people who received collage graduate education were significantly higher, people who were engaged in the primary industries and lower educational classes(below middle school), in contrast, were significantly lower than in the rural populations. In the practice of health behavior, consumption of health foods and amount of exercise in urban populations were significantly higher than in the rural, whereas the state of health, prevalence of chronic disease, Body Mass Index(BMI), consumption of ethanol and cigarette, and hours of sleep were not significantly different between the urban and rural populations. In the eating habits, rate of surfeit, vaccination of hepatitis B, and screening of cancer in the urban populations were significantly higher than in the rural, rate of regular meal, taste of salted food, consumption of vegetables, in contrast. were significantly lower than in the rural. But, consumption of coffee, intake of meat, and periodic medical checkup were not significantly different between urban and rural communities. Logistic regression analysis revealed that the factors associated with subjective thought on health state were sex, age, occupation, educational level, exercise, and consumption of coffee. Logistic regression analysis to find related factor with prevalence of chronic disease was conducted. As a results, age, educational level, BMI, intake of meat, screening of cancer, and consumption of health foods were related to prevalence of chronic disease. Conclusions: The study showed that special attention to device the health plan are necessary and it suggested that consideration of regional differences are required to provide the community health projects.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.44-54
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• 1986

This study was aimed at investigating the health seeking behaviors of patients; For the purpose of analyzing the research theme we classified the study into two phase. First, the types of patients' health seeking behavior were categorized into a scheme according to what medical care resources were utilized in patients' coping process. Second, from patients' first visits to third visits to medical resources, we analyzed variations of factors which noted as crucial elements in constituting the patients' sickness career. To grasp the generalized characteristics from complicated empirical data, we limited the scope of our analysis to third stage of health seeking. A total of 121 persons who had beer suffering from chronic diseases more than 3 months was sampled among the residents of Banwol-Eup, the target Area of Korea University Health Project. The findings are as follows ; 1) In the course of visiting medical care resources, 34 different types of health seeking Behavior were found. From this result we inferred the idea that patients in Banwol-Eup had not any stable norms to cope with their pains. Clinics, hospital, pharmacy, Herb-doctors', folkways (self-treatment) were accessed by patients in orders. But more than half of patients who had utilized clinics or hospitals from their first to third visits, changed medical care resources to others, for example herb doctors or folkways, which had fundamentally different treatment models. Upon these two facts, the diversified types and capricious patterns in the health seeking behavior of Banwol patients, we observed a typical Shopping-Around phenomenon. 2) Factors which influenced patients' to their sickness career were changed along the courses of health seeking, from first to third visits as follows ; $\cdot$ Perceived seriousness of diseases were tended to decrease. $\cdot$ Professional medical personnel tended to be influencial in the patients' sickness career, (5.0%, 25.0% and 65.7%). The influence of the primary interaction groups such as parents, friends, neighbours, tended to decrease ; (90.9%, 71.2% and 30.0%). $\cdot$ The subjective reasons why to choose such a medical care resource were related to economic affordability and disease-itself as main motives. Credibility of health resources tended to increase 14.9%, 24.0% and 31.4 sequently. $\cdot$ Geographic accessibility factors did not change significantly. Most of patients had utilized health resources in Banwol and Anyang area. 3) Cultural inclination in the shopping-around phenomenon has shown difference among age groups. The age group' over 50 years' preferred traditional health resources to modern health resources. 4) Consistency of health seeking behavior on the shopping around phenomenon has shown difference according to the degrees of patients' economic affordability and those of psychological satisfaction toward modern health services. However, there were some restrictions in this thesis ; a) the study was limited to the 3rd health seeking career so it did not allow us to collect more informations after that, b) the study was not able to carry out causal analysis on patients health behavior determinated by explanatory model of health resources, and c) the study was not able to take into consideration of factors connected with social structural circumstances. Despite of restrictions described above, we are sure that this thesis would promote health providers' understanding toward patients' inclinations, through which they could provide efficient and accurate medical service.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.31-48
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• 2003

Objectives: This study evaluated the status of Health-related Behavior in residents from rural areas. A self-administered questionnaire was given to 1,754 people (men; 633 persons, women; 1,121 persons) in rural areas aged over 30 years and under 80 years in Buk-myeon, Uljin-gun and Gigye-myeon, Pohang-si, Gyeongsangbuk-do in 2001 and 2002. Methods: The collected data was analyzed using a chi-square test after an age-adjusted and a chi-square trend test. The data was analyzed using a SPSS/win ver. 10.0. Results: The age-adjusted prevalence of the individual unhealthy behavior according to sex was 56.1% in men and 6.8% in women with regard to smoking; 65.4% and 21.6% with regard to drinking; 72.6% and 76.6% with regard to non-exercise on a regular basis; 23.3% and 28.2 with regard to an obese body mass index; 61.5% and 71.1% with regard to non-scaling in the dental service. The rate of alcohol and tobacco consumption increased with increasing age in both men and women (p<0.01). The age-adjusted proportion in the non-screening examination for stomach cancer according to sex was 49.3% in men and 51.4% in women; 64.0% and 70.7% in liver cancer; 88.9% and 87.5% in colon cancer; 58.3% and 59.1% in undergoing a medical health screening. Conclusions: It is essential for health educators to promote Health-related Behavior in residents in rural areas. In addition, it is expected that the health status of residents in rural areas will improve through efforts to encourage them to take more interest in a healthier lifestyle.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.15-28
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• 2005

Objectives: The purpose of this cross-sectional study was aimed to investigate the status of bowel health behaviors, prevalence of constipation and risk factors related to self-reported constipation in high school students. Methods: The study subjects were 1,882 students of six high schools located in a metropolitan city, who were selected by the accidental sampling from June to August, 2002. We analyzed the data by frequency analysis, chi-square test, and multivariate logistic regression using SPSS ver. 10.0. Results: The result of this study were summarized as follows: 1. A prevalence rate of self-reported constipation was 25.2%. A rate in male students was 13.4% and in female students 36.5%. 2. In regard to therapeutic behavior, 52.1% of study student with change in bowel habit had not find particular counsellor, 38.9% of the student had counselling with parents. 16.3% of students in constipation group had taken laxative medicine for treating the constipation. 73.5% of the student in constipation group had suffered from anal pain during defecation, but 48.0% in normal group. 41.6% of the student in constipation group had a experience of rectal bleeding after defecation, but 23.7% in normal group. So constipation related symptoms distribution had showed statistically significant difference between two group. 3. From the multivariate analysis by self-reported method, the risk factors related to the constipation were sex(female), experience of diet for weight reduction, absence of the breakfast and intake of vegetable more than 3 times per weeks. Conclusions: we had reconfirmed that we should improve eating habits to prevent and treat the constipation in a result of this study. Intervention that is target to girl students, abstain from weight reduction diet, regularity of taking meals, intake more vegetables, stress management should be provided to prevent the constipation especially in Korean high school students. Further prospective designed study are needed to establish the causal-effect relationship between so many risk factors with constipation.