• Health Policy and Management
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.106-119
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• 2024

Drug shortage is a persistent phenomenon that poses a public health risk worldwide and occurs due to a range of causes. The purpose of this study is to review key policies to prepare for and respond to drug shortages in selected countries, such as the United States, Canada, and some European countries in order to draw implications. This study reviewed the reports and articles derived from search engines and Google Scholar by using keywords such as drug shortage and stock-out. Over the last decade or so, the United States have strengthened requirements on advance notification for disruption and interruption of drug manufacturing, established the Inter-agency Drug Shortages Task Force to promote the communication and coordination of responses, and expedited drug regulatory processes. Similarly, Canada established the Multi-Stakeholder Steering Committee on drug shortages by involving representatives from central and local governments and private sectors. Canada also adopted a tiered approach to the communication of drug shortages based on the assessment of the severity of the shortage problem and released a detailed information guide on communication. In 2019, the joint task force between the European Medicines Agency and the Heads of Medicines Agencies issued guidelines on drug shortage communication in the European Economic Area. The countries reviewed in this paper focus on communication across different stakeholders for the monitoring of and timely response to drug shortages. The efforts to protect public health from the negative impact of the drug shortage crisis would require multi-sectorial and multi-governmental coordination and development of guidelines.

• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.77-85
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• 2006

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to develop the basic curriculum for the nurses who work at hospice and palliative care settings. Methods: Seven curricula of hospice and palliative care for the nurses in Korea and other countries were reviewed, and Education Need for hospice and palliative care was surveyed from 162 nurses by mailing the questionnaires to hospice palliative care settings. Results: 1. The curricula of hospice and palliative care for the nurses in Korea and other countries in common include 'understanding of hospice and palliative care', 'understanding of lift and death', 'pain and symptom management for person with terminal disease', 'on-the-spot study and practical training', 'management of hospice and palliative ward', 'hospice and palliative care at home', 'physical assessment', 'therapeutic communication skills', 'children's hospice', 'administration and management of hospice and palliative care', 'interdisciplinary team of hospice and palliative care', 'ethics and laws in hospice and palliative care', 'psychological, social and spiritual care', 'care of the dying', 'bereavement care', etc. 2. The scores above 3.3 were marked for 34 items in education Need Survey. The highest scores were given in the order for the items 'understanding of death and dying', 'attitude and response to death and dying', 'understanding and assessment of pain' etc. respondents marked that they have been trained for 'pain and symptom management', 'ethics and laws in hospice and palliative care', 'building the system for cooperation and publicity activities in hospice' etc. 3. The basic curriculum of hospice and palliative care for the nurses requires 78 studying hours for 17 subjects, comprising 48 hours of theory education and 30 hours of practical training. The education methods are lectures, discussions, and case studies. Conclusion: The efforts of developed basic curriculum should be evaluated after educating nurses. It is necessary to develop the standard curriculum and regularly update it based on the result of education Need Survey for actively working nurses in hospice and palliative care settings.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.127-139
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• 2017

Measurements of net ecosystem exchange (NEE) of $CO_2$ based on the eddy covariance technique provide reasonable carbon balance estimates in response to local environmental conditions. In South Korea, the forest ecosystems cover approximately 64% of the total area, thereby strongly affecting regional carbon balances. Cultivated croplands that cover about 17% of the total area should also be considered when calculating the carbon balance of the country. In this study, our objectives were (a) to quantify the range and seasonal variation of NEE at forest ecosystems, including deciduous, coniferous, and mixed forests, and agricultural ecosystems, including rice paddies and a potato field, in South Korea and (b) to compare NEE at ten Fluxnet sites that have the same or similar ecosystems as found in South Korea. The results showed that the forest and agricultural ecosystems were carbon sinks. In Korea, NEE at the forest ecosystems varied between -31 and $-362gC/m^2/yr$, and NEE at the croplands ranged from -210 to $-248gC/m^2/growing$ season. At the deciduous forest, NEE reached low values in late spring, early summer, and early autumn, while at the coniferous forest, it reached low values in spring, early summer, and mid autumn. The young mixed forest was a much stronger carbon sink than the old-growth deciduous and coniferous forests. During each crop growing season, beet had the lowest NEE value within six crops, followed by wither wheat, maize, rice, potato, and soybean. These results will be useful for designing and applying management strategies for the reduction of $CO_2$ emissions.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.525-537
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• 2013

The purpose of this study was to investigate science integrated process skill of the students in science education center for the gifted. In order to do this, 'free-response test for the assessment of science process skills' developed by Yu-Hyang Kim(2013) was administered to 102 students(15 in elementary school science class, 58 in middle school science class I, and 29 in middle school science class II) who attend the program of science education center for the gifted in C university. The assessment tool measured 9 skills ; formulating inquiry questions, recognizing variables, formulating hypotheses, designing experiment, transforming data, interpreting data, drawing conclusions, formulating generalizations, and evaluating the designed experiments. As a result, the students in science education center for the gifted had relatively high scores in the area of 'formulating hypotheses' and 'recognizing variables', but they had relatively low scores in the area of 'transforming data', 'interpreting data', and 'evaluating the designed experiments'. The 2 items' percentage of correct answers were below 40% ; one is about a drawing a line graph in 'transforming data', and the other requires finding improvements of the experimental design in 'evaluation'. There was no significant difference between boys' scores and girls's one, and between the scores of students in the field of biology and those of students in the other fields(physics, chemistry, and earth science) in science integrated process skills. And there was significant difference according to the periods receiving the gifted education in 'formulating generalizations'. The teaching and learning has to focus on improving science integrated process skills in the program of science education center for the gifted and teaching and learning materials needs to be developed.

• Horticultural Science & Technology
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.389-406
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• 2011

As part of a feasibility study for introducing carbon labeling of fruit products in Korea, we explore the use of carbon footprints for Korean kiwifruit from Gyeongnam region as a case study. In Korea, the Korean Environmental Industry and Technology Institute (KEITI) is responsible for the carbon footprint labeling certification, and has two types of certification programs: one program focuses on climate change response (carbon footprint labeling analysis) and the other on low-carbon products (reduction of carbon footprints analysis). Currently agricultural products have not yet been included in the program. Carbon labeling could soon be a prerequisite for the international trading of agricultural products. In general the carbon footprints of various agricultural products from New Zealand followed the methodology described in the ISO standards and conformed to the PAS 2050. The carbon footprint assessment focuses on a supply chain, and considers the foreground and the background systems. The basic scheme consists of four phases, which are the 'goal', 'scope', 'inventory analysis', and 'interpretation' phases. In the case of the carbon footprint of New Zealand kiwifruit the study tried to understand each phase's contribution to total GHG emissions. According to the results, shipping, orchard, and coolstore operation are the main life cycle stages that contribute to the carbon footprint of the kiwifruit supply chain stretching from the orchard in New Zealand to the consumer in the UK. The carbon emission of long-distance transportation such as shipping can be a hot-spot of GHG emissions, but can be balanced out by minimizing the carbon footprint of other life cycle phases. For this reason it is important that orchard and coolstore operations reduce the GHG-intensive inputs such as fuel or electricity to minimize GHG emissions and consequently facilitate the industry to compete in international markets. The carbon footprint labeling guided by international standards should be introduced for fruit products in Korea as soon as possible. The already established LCA methodology of NZ kiwifruit can be applied for fruit products as a case study.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.30 no.1 s.56
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• pp.77-101
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• 1997

In September 1994, residents of Gozan-dong, Incheon City, made a petition to the government about their health problems which might be caused by previous glass fibre landfill nearby 'H' company. In february 1995, at regular academic meeting of occupational and environmental medicine, a research team of 'D' University presented that they had found glass fibres in groundwater of the area through their survey. They were suspicious of probable association between ingestion of groundwater contaminated with glass fibres and skin tumors among residents. A joint research team was formed and carried out the survey of environment concerning groundwater and its glass fibre existence, and health assessment of residents in the area and industrial workers of 'H' company during May to November, 1995. Analysis of groundwater flow system indicates that the flow lines from the glass fibre landfill pass through or terminate at the 6 houses around the landfill. This means that the groundwater of the 6 houses around the glass fibre landfill could be affected by some possible contaminants from the landfill, but the groundwater quality of the other houses was irrelevant to the landfill. The qualitative and qualitative analyses for glass fibres in 54 groundwater samples including those from the nearby 6 houses, were carried out using SEM equipped with EDS, resulting in no evidence for the presence of glass fibres in the waters. Major precipitates, formed in waters while boiling, were identified as calcium carbonates, in particulary, aragonites in needle form. The results of health assessments of 889 residents in Gozan-dong, participated in this study, showed statistically significant differences in past medical histories of skin tumor and respiratory disease between the exposed group (31 persons who inhabited in 6 houses around the landfill) and the control group, but no significant differences in past medical histories of other diseases, such as cancer mortality, current gastroscopic findings, current skin diseases and respiratory diseases, etc. Also, we could not prove any glass fibres in excised specimens of 9 skin tumors in both groups and there were no health problems possibly associated with glass fibres in employees of the 'H' company. After all, we could not authenticate the association, raised by prior investigators, between groundwater streams, assumedly contaminated with glass fibres or not, and specific disease morbidities or common disease/symptom prevalences. That is, we could not find any glass fibres in groundwater as the only exposure factor of this study hypothesis, and there were not enough certain evidences such as increasing disease prevalences, for examples, skin, respiratory and gastrointestinal diseases etc, possibly related to glass fibre exposure, in exposed group. As a matter of course, the conditions for confirming causal association, for example, strength of the association, consistency of the association, specificity of the association, temporality of the association and dose-response relationship etc, have not been satisfied. In conclusion, we were not able to certify the hypothesis that contamination of groundwater with glass fibres might cause any hazardous health effects in residents who used it for drinking.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.36 no.5_4
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• pp.1267-1276
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• 2020

To quantitatively predict the impacts of large-scale volcanic eruptions of Mt. Baekdu on air quality and damage around the Korean Peninsula, a three-dimensional chemistry-transport modeling system (Weather Research & Forecasting - Sparse Matrix Operation Kernel Emission - Comunity Multi-scale Air Quality) was adopted. A worst-case meteorology scenario was selected to estimate the direct impact on Korea. This study applied the typical worst-case scenarios that are likely to cause significant damage to Korea among worst-case volcanic eruptions of Mt. Baekdu in the past decade (2005~2014) and assumed a massive VEI 4 volcanic eruption on May 16, 2012, to analyze the concentration of PM_2.5 caused by the volcanic eruption. The effects of air quality in each region-cities, counties, boroughs-were estimated, and vulnerable areas were derived by conducting an exposure assessment reflecting vulnerable groups. Moreover, the effects of cities, counties, and boroughs were analyzed with a high-resolution scale (9 km × 9 km) to derive vulnerable areas within the regions. As a result of analyzing the typical worst-case volcanic eruptions of Mt. Baekdu, a discrepancy was shown in areas between high PM_2.5 concentration, high population density, and where vulnerable groups are concentrated. From the result, PM_2.5 peak concentration was about 24,547 ㎍/㎥, which is estimated to be a more serious situation than the eruption of Mt. St. Helensin 1980, which is known for 540 million tons of volcanic ash. Paju, Gimpo, Goyang, Ganghwa, Sancheong, Hadong showed to have a high PM_2.5 concentration. Paju appeared to be the most vulnerable area from the exposure assessment. While areas estimated with a high concentration of air pollutants are important, it is also necessary to develop plans and measures considering densely populated areas or areas with high concentrations of susceptible population or vulnerable groups. Also, establishing measures for each vulnerable area by selecting high concentration areas within cities, counties, and boroughs rather than establishing uniform measures for all regions is needed. This study will provide the foundation for developing the standards for disaster declaration and preemptive response systems for volcanic eruptions.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.43 no.5
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• pp.705-715
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• 2010

The adoption of carbon foot print system is being activated mostly in the developed countries as one of the long-term response towards tightened up regulations and standards on carbon emission in the agricultural sector. The Korean Ministry of Environment excluded the primary agricultural products from the carbon foot print system due to lack of LCI (life cycle inventory) database in agriculture. Therefore, the research on and establishment of LCI database in the agriculture for adoption of carbon foot print system is urgent. Development of LCA (life cycle assessment) methodology for application of LCA to agricultural environment in Korea is also very important. Application of LCA methodology to agricultural environment in Korea is an early stage. Therefore, this study was carried out to find out the effect of lettuce cultivation on agricultural environment by establishing LCA methodology. Data collection of agricultural input and output for establishing LCI was carried out by collecting statistical data and documents on income from agro and livestock products prepared by RDA. LCA methodology for agriculture was reviewed by investigating LCA methodology and LCA applications of foreign countries. Results based on 1 kg of lettuce production showed that inputs including N, P, organic fertilizers, compound fertilizers and crop protectants were the main sources of major emission factor during lettuce cropping process. The amount of inputs considering the amount of active ingredients was required to estimate the actual quantity of the inputs used. Major emissions due to agricultural activities were $N_2O$ (emission to air) and ${NO_3}^-$/${PO_4}^-$ (emission to water) from fertilizers, organic compounds from pesticides and air pollutants from fossil fuel combustion in using agricultural machines. The softwares for LCIA (life cycle impact assessment) and LCA used in Korea are 'PASS' and 'TOTAL' which have been developed by the Ministry of Knowledge Economy and the Ministry of Environment. However, the models used for the softwares are the ones developed in foreign countries. In the future, development of models and optimization of factors for characterization, normalization and weighting suitable to Korean agricultural environment need to be done for more precise LCA analysis in the agricultural area.

• Korean Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.78-91
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• 2002

Objective : The purpose of this study was to develop the somatization rating scale (SRS), and then to use the scale in clinical pracitice. Methods: First, a preliminary survey was conducted for 109 healthy adults to obtain 40 response items. Second, a preliminary questionnaire was completed by 215 healthy subjects. Third, a comparison was made regarding somatization responses among 242 patients (71 with anxiety disorder. 73 with depressive disorder, 47 with somatoform disorder, and 51 with psychosomatic disorder) and 215 healthy subjects. Results : Factor analysis yielded 5 subscales : cardiorespiratory and nervous responses, somatic sensitivity, gastrointestinal responses, general somatic responses, genitourinary, eye and muscular responses. Reliability was computed by administering the SRS to 62 healthy subjects during a 2-week interval. Test-retest reliability for 5 subscales and the total score was significantly high, ranging between .86-.94. Internal consistency was computed, and Cronbach's ${\alpha}$ for 5 subscales ranged between .72-.92, and .95 for the total score. Convergent validity was computed by correlating the 5 subscales and the total score with the total score of the global assessment of recent stress (GARS) scale, the perceived stress questionnaire (PSQ), and the symptom checklist-90-revised (SCL-90-R). The correlations were all at significant levels. Discriminant validity was computed by comparing the total score and the 5 subscale scores of the patient and control groups. Significant differences were found for 5 subscales and the total score. Only the depressive disorder group was siginificantly higher than control group in all the subscale scores and total scores of SRS among 4 patient groups. In somatic sensitivity, only depressive disorder patients were significantly higher than the normal controls, whereas in general somatic subscale, depressive disorder and somatoform disorder groups were significantly higher than the normal controls. In total scores of the SRS, female subjects were significantly higher than males. Conclusion : These results indicate that the SRS is highly reliable and valid, and that it can be utilized as an effective measure for research in stress- and somatization-related fields. The depressive disorder and somatoform disorder groups showed more widespread somatization than the anxiety and psychosomatic disorder groups.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.47 no.5
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• pp.351-363
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• 2014

Purpose: The aim of this study was to develop a reliable measurement tool to assess the urban food environment, particularly focusing on food stores in Korea. Methods: The items for the measurement tool were selected through systematic literature reviews and adjusted to the Korean food environment. A total of 25 food stores in an urban area were recruited for the pilot test to evaluate the time required for completion of the survey, ease of response, willingness to participate, difficulties in conducting the survey, and appropriateness, and 34 food stores were recruited for assessment of the reliability of the tool using percent agreement and kappa value. Results: The measurement tool is composed of questions regarding food store characteristics, accessibility, and food availability. On average, 26 minutes was required to survey a single food store, and the subjects and interviewers answered that the process was not difficult for the survey. The percent agreement for the inter-rater and test-retest reliability ranged from 93.9~98.8% and 91.9~97.9, respectively. The kappa values ranged from 0.78 to 0.97, which was very high. Percent agreement and kappa value of food with healthy option were lower than those of the general food in the inter-rater reliability (p = 0.0027, p = 0.0095 respectively) as well as in the test-retest reliability (p = 0.0081, p = 0.0290, respectively), although they were still high enough (86.4~98.0% for percent agreement, 0.64~0.96 for kappa value). Conclusion: The newly developed measurement tool for assessment of food store environment appears to be feasible and reliable; therefore, it can be applied to research on the association between food environment and dietary behaviors as well as health outcomes.