• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.235-243
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• 2008

Construction projects have unique characteristics that these may be carried out by contractors thus, cost should be estimated before execution. The importance of cost estimation and cost check has become increasingly emphasized in all phases of construction project that would be performed numerously. It is needed that owner have to estimate reasonable budget, and contractor should predict the bid price. However, there are lack of standard cost estimation method before quantity takeoff, cost analysis method, and cost database thus, the method of area cost, such as square foot method, is as used as ever in Korea. Therefore, this research suggested standard cost database structure CUBE, and analysis method of item quantity per one household categorized by area type. Whereafter, database of all item quantity of finish work has been built with 90 building cost data, and validated it's availability. In this respect, the suggested method and the findings from this research are expected to help enhancing the efficiency and productivity of cost estimation in Korea.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.55-65
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• 2010

To effectively secure and execute the national budget, it is very important to estimate the reasonable construction cost of each process in the construction of public facilities and works. The construction cost is generally estimated at the time when the design of the targeted structures has been completed. Without detailed sectional drawings and with only simple information on bridge structures in the planning stage or in the early design stage. it would be very difficult to predict the approximate construction cost. In this study, a more efficient and appropriate approximate construction cost estimation model in the planning stage and in the early design stage is presented and verified as reliable by analyzing the construction cost data of 61 existing steel box girder bridges from previous studies. The results of this study show that when the construction cost that was predicted using the construction cost estimation model in the design stage was compared with the cost from the conventional standards, the suggested model in this study produced results with a very high confidence level.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.5-11
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• 2009

Objectives : This study was conducted to estimate the socioeconomic cost of injuries in South Korea. Methods : We matched claims data from national health insurance, automobile insurance and industrial accident compensation insurance(IACI), and mortality data obtained from the national statistical office from 2001 to 2003 by patients unique identifier. Socioeconomic cost included both direct cost and indirect cost: the direct cost was injury-related medical expenditure and the indirect cost included loss of productivity due to healthcare utilization and premature death. Results : The socioeconomic cost of injuries in Korea was approximately 1.9% of the GDP from 2001 to 2003. That is, 12.1 trillion KRW(Korean Won) in 2001, 12.3 trillion KRW in 2002, and 13.7 trillion KRW in 2003. In 2003, direct medical costs were 24.6%(3.4 trillion KRW), the costs for loss of productivity by healthcare utilization were 13.0%(1.8 trillion KRW), and the costs for loss of productivity by premature death were 62.4%(8.6 trillion KRW). Conclusions : In this study, the socioeconomic cost of injuries in Korea between 2001 and 2003 was estimated by using not only health insurance claims data, but also automobile insurance, IACI claims and mortality data. We conclude that social efforts are required to reduce the socioeconomic cost of injuries in Korea, which represented approximately 1.9% of the GDP for the time period specified.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.47 no.5
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• pp.486-495
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• 2021

Background: Particulate matter (PM) is one of the leading causes of premature death worldwide. Previous studies in South Korea have applied a relative risk calculated from Western populations when estimating the disease burden attributable to PM. However, the relative risk of PM on health outcomes may not be the same across different countries or regions. Objectives: This study aimed to estimate the premature deaths and socioeconomic costs attributable to long-term exposure to PM in South Korea. We considered not only the difference in PM concentration between regions, but also the difference in relative risk. Methods: National monitoring data of PM concentrations was obtained, and missing values were imputed using the AERMOD model and linear regression model. As a surrogate for relative risk, hazard ratios (HRs) of PM for cardiovascular and respiratory mortality were estimated using the National Health Insurance Service-National Sample Cohort. The nation was divided into five areas (metropolitan, central, southern, south-eastern, and Gangwon-do Province regions). The number of PM attributable deaths in 2018 was calculated at the district level. The socioeconomic cost was derived by multiplying the number of deaths and the statistical value of life. Results: The average PM₁₀ concentration for 2014~2018 was 45.2 ㎍/m³. The association between long-term exposure to PM₁₀ and mortality was heterogeneous between areas. When applying area-specific HRs, 23,811 premature deaths from cardiovascular and respiratory disease in 2018 were attributable to PM₁₀ (reference level 20 ㎍/m³). The corresponding socioeconomic cost was about 31 trillion won. These estimated values were higher than that when applying nationwide HRs. Conclusions: This study is the first research to estimate the premature mortality caused by long-term exposure to PM using relative risks derived from the national population. This study will help precisely identify the national and regional health burden attributed to PM and establish the priorities of air quality policy.

• 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.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.367-391
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• 2013

After the Fukushima nuclear accident, the external costs of generating electricity from nuclear power plants such as additional safety compliance costs and possible accident risk action costs have gained increasing attention from the public, policy-makers and politicians. Consequently, estimates of the external costs of nuclear power are very deliberate issue that is at the center of the controversy in Korea. In this paper, we try to calculate the external costs associated with the safety of the nuclear power plants, particularly focusing on additional safety compliance costs and possible accident risk action costs. To estimate the possible accident risk action costs, we adopt the damages expectation approach that is very similar way from the external cost calculation of Japanese government after the Fukushima accident. In addition, to estimate additional safety compliance costs, we apply the levelized cost of generation method. Furthermore, we perform the sensitivity analysis to examine how much these social costs increase the electricity price rate. Estimation results of the additional security measure cost is 0.53Won/kWh ~ 0.80Won/kWh depending on the capacity factor, giving little change on the nuclear power generation cost. The estimates of possible accident risk action costs could be in the wide range depending on the different damages of the nuclear power accident, probability of the severe nuclear power accident and the capacity factor. The preliminary results show that it is 0.0025Won/kWh ~ 26.4188Won/kWh. After including those two external costs on the generation cost of a nuclear power plant, increasing rate of electricity price is 0.001%~10.0563% under the capacity factor from 70% to 90%. This paper tries to examine the external costs of nuclear power plants, so as to include it into the generation cost and the electricity price. This paper suggests one of the methodologies that we might internalize the nuclear power generations' external cost, including it into the internal generation cost.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.29 no.2 s.53
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• pp.347-357
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• 1996

Although occupational low back pain accounts for $20\sim40%$ of all occupational illness and injury, there are limited numbers of studies regarding the effectiveness of back school program. The objective of this study was to evaluate the economic benefit of back school program for early return to work of occupational low back pain patients in the current occupational injury compensation and management system. The cost-benefit analysis in this study was conducted to evaluate the relative magnitude of benefit to cost. The total cost was estimated by calculating the value of components in back school program according to governmental budget protocol. The back school program was consisted of three major approaches, pain center, work-hardening program and funcional restoration program and each of components had various facilities and experts. The total amount of cost was estimated as 250,866,220 won per year. The most promising type of back school program were quite intensive (a 3 to 5-week stay in a specialized center), therefore, if we adopted the 5-week stay course, 10 courses could be held in a year. Following to the medical act, 20 patients per doctor could participate in a each course, ie, total 200 patients in a year. As a result, we could estimate the cost of 1,254,331 won a patient. We estimated the benefit by using data of a few local labor offices about average medical treatment beneficiary and off-duty beneficiary of 46 occupational low back pain patients in 1994. Ullman and Larsson (1977) mentioned that the group of chronic low back pain patients who participated in back school program needed less time to recover by 48.4% of beneficiary duration. And in the trying to estimate the benefit, we asked 10 rehabilitation board certificate doctors about reduction proportion of treatment cost by introducing back school program. The answered reduction proportions were in the range of $30\sim45%$, average 39%. As a final result, we could see that the introduction of back school program in treatment of chronic occupational low back pain patients could produce the benefit to cost ratio as 3.90 and 6.28. And we could conclude that the introduction of back school program was beneficial to current occupational injury compensation and management system.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Library and Information Science
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• v.55 no.1
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• pp.285-303
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• 2021

Efforts to establish a joint preservation facility for library collection are being discussed by some of regional representative libraries recently. In order for the efficient management and preservation of public library materials and to secure the space necessary for applying new services, there is a high demand for a cooperative shared storage for public libraries. The construction of a cooperative shared storage for public libraries is to minimize the cost of expanding the preservation space for each public library and to provide a pleasant service environment by separating the low-use materials stored in the library. Accordingly, discussions on the construction of a cooperative shared storage for public libraries are being initiated by some representative libraries. This study, in this regard, tried to propose a plan to build a cooperative shared storage for public libraries by a Seoul Metropolitan Library. To this end, it surveyed the estimate size of the collections of public libraries in Seoul and, based on this, proposed the size and strategies for the facility.

• Journal of Animal Environmental Science
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.23-30
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• 2008

The objective of this study was to estimate the optimum scale of PLMTP (Public Livestock Manure Treatment Plant) for the efficient management of public sector by long-run cost function. An economic analysis was performed using the survey of 52 PLMTP records collected by Ministry of Environment in 2007. The main results obtained in this study can be summed up as follows. The optimum scale under given environmental conditions turned out to be $180{\sim}200m^3$/day which is almost $1.5{\sim}1.6$ times of the average scale of sample plants, $146m^3$/day. This gap between the optimum and current scale suggests that there remains the possibility of further expansion of scale.

• Journal of Obesity & Metabolic Syndrome
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.238-247
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• 2018

Background: We aimed to estimate the proportion of patients with diabetes who achieved target glycemic control, to estimate diabetes-related costs attributable to poor control, and to identify factors associated with them in the United Arab Emirates. Methods: This retrospective cohort study used administrative claims data handled by Abu Dhabi Health Authority (January 2010 to June 2012) to determine glycemic control and diabetes-related treatment costs. A total of 4,058 patients were matched using propensity scores to eliminate selection bias between patients with glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c) <7% and HbA1c ${\geq}7%$. Diabetes-related costs attributable to poor control were estimated using a recycled prediction method. Factors associated with glycemic control were investigated using logistic regression and factors associated with these costs were identified using a generalized linear model. Results: During the 1-year follow-up period, 46.6% of the patients achieved HbA1c <7%. Older age, female sex, better insurance coverage, non-use of insulin in the index diagnosis month, and non-use of antidiabetic medications during the follow-up period were significantly associated with improved glycemic control. The mean diabetes-related annual costs were $2,282 and $2,667 for patients with and without glycemic control, respectively, and the cost attributable to poor glycemic control was $172 (95% confidence interval [CI], $164-180). The diabetes-related costs were lower with mean HbA1c levels <7% (cost ratio, 0.94; 95% CI, 0.88-0.99). The costs were significantly higher in patients aged ${\geq}65$ years than those aged ${\leq}44$ years (cost ratio, 1.45; 95% CI, 1.25-1.70). Conclusion: More than 50% of patients with diabetes had poorly controlled HbA1c. Poor glycemic control may increase diabetes-related costs.