• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• 제39권4호
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• pp.309-316
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• 2006

Objectives: Korean epidemiological studies have used reduced samples according to the subject's characteristics, such as the health services provided, the historical note with asthma, and age, to examine the acute effect of air pollution on asthma using the Korean National Health Insurance records. However, there have been few studies on whether the effects shown in these reduced samples are different from those of all samples. This study compared the effects of air pollution on asthma attacks in three reduced samples with those of entire samples. Methods: The air pollution data for $PM_{10},\;CO,\;SO_2,\;NO_2,\;and\;O_3$, and weather conditions including temperature, relative humidity, and air pressure in Seoul, 2002, were obtained from outdoor monitoring stations in Seoul. The emergency hospital visits with an asthma attack in Seoul, 2002 were extracted from the Korean National Health Insurance records. From these, the reduced samples were created by health service, historical notes with asthma, and age. A case-crossover design was adopted and the acute effects of air pollution on asthma were estimated after adjusting for weather, time trend, and seasonality. The model was applied to each reduced sample and the entire sample. Results: With respect to the health service, the effects on outpatients were similar to those for the total sample but were different for inpatients. These similar effect sizes were also observed in the reduced samples according to the historical note with asthma and age. The relative risks of $PM_{10},\;CO,\;SO_2,\;NO_2,\;and\;O_3$, among the reduced and entire samples were 1.03, 1.04-1.05, 1.02-1.03, 1.04-1.06, and 1.10-1.17, respectively. Conclusions: There was no clear evidence to show a difference between the reduced samples and the entire samples.

• Environmental Analysis Health and Toxicology
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• 제30권
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• pp.10.1-10.14
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• 2015

Recent cohort studies have relied on exposure prediction models to estimate individual-level air pollution concentrations because individual air pollution measurements are not available for cohort locations. For such prediction models, geographic variables related to pollution sources are important inputs. We demonstrated the computation process of geographic variables mostly recorded in 2010 at regulatory air pollution monitoring sites in South Korea. On the basis of previous studies, we finalized a list of 313 geographic variables related to air pollution sources in eight categories including traffic, demographic characteristics, land use, transportation facilities, physical geography, emissions, vegetation, and altitude. We then obtained data from different sources such as the Statistics Geographic Information Service and Korean Transport Database. After integrating all available data to a single database by matching coordinate systems and converting non-spatial data to spatial data, we computed geographic variables at 294 regulatory monitoring sites in South Korea. The data integration and variable computation were performed by using ArcGIS version 10.2 (ESRI Inc., Redlands, CA, USA). For traffic, we computed the distances to the nearest roads and the sums of road lengths within different sizes of circular buffers. In addition, we calculated the numbers of residents, households, housing buildings, companies, and employees within the buffers. The percentages of areas for different types of land use compared to total areas were calculated within the buffers. For transportation facilities and physical geography, we computed the distances to the closest public transportation depots and the boundary lines. The vegetation index and altitude were estimated at a given location by using satellite data. The summary statistics of geographic variables in Seoul across monitoring sites showed different patterns between urban background and urban roadside sites. This study provided practical knowledge on the computation process of geographic variables in South Korea, which will improve air pollution prediction models and contribute to subsequent health analyses.

• Asian Journal of Atmospheric Environment
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• 제7권4호
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• pp.227-233
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• 2013

Scientific evidence shows that ambient air quality is one of the major environmental issues related to human health. The aim of this paper was to provide quantitative data on the short-term impact of air pollution on the mortality and morbidity of people living in Suwon city. There are some studies that have conducted health impacts of the air pollution in Seoul, Korea. However, there are few studies of the health effects on air pollution conducted in satellite cities of the Seoul Metropolitan area. For this reason, we investigated the health effects of air pollution in Suwon city, one of the highly populated satellite cities of Seoul. In order to estimate the short-term mortality impact of air pollution, this study applied the approach suggested by the World Health Organization (WHO), using AirQ2.2.3 software. Daily concentrations of $PM_{10}$, $O_3$, $NO_2$, and $SO_2$ were used to assess human exposure and health effects, in terms of attributable proportion of the health outcome, annual number of excess cases of mortality for all causes, and cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. Among the four considered air pollutants, $PM_{10}$ had the highest health impact on the 1,118,000 inhabitants of Suwon city, causing an excess of total mortality of 105 out of 4,254 in a year. Sulfur dioxide had the least health impact. Ozone and nitrogen dioxide each caused 42.7 and 81.3 excess cases of total mortality in a year. The results are also in line with those of other international studies that apply AirQ software.

• 한국대기환경학회지
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• 제7권1호
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• pp.41-47
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• 1991

Air pollution potentials of the 7 cities in the central part of Korea were obtained with the mean wind speed within the mixed layer and the mixed layer height calculated by the Jump Model. Seasonal variation of the afternoon mixed layer height in Seoul area shows that low in winter and high in summer. Annual mean of the morning air pollution potential was lowest in Incheon and highest in Wonju. On the other hand annual mean of the afternoon air pollution potential was lowest in Incheon and highest in Chuncheon. Relatively low air pollution potential in Incheon can be explained as high mixed layer height and the effect of sea breeze.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• 제38권4호
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• pp.465-472
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• 2005

Objectives : The aim of this study was to assess the effect of air pollution on the daily respiratory symptoms of elementary school children in Seoul. Methods : Using the panel study design, we collected diary data for the children's respiratory symptoms during the 1st day$\sim$15th day of April, July, October and December in 2003 among the 2nd and 3rd grade elementary school students. We merged the respiratory symptom data with the ambient air pollution data that was monitored by Ministry of Environment. Using a generalized estimate equation, we evaluated the relationship between the daily symptoms of the subjects and the exposure to ai r pollution after controlling for various potential confounders. Results : The nitrogen dioxide (NO2) exposure of the current day significantly increased the upper respiratory symptoms (adjusted odds ratio=1.12, 95% CI=1.01-1.24) and the lower respiratory symptoms (adjusted odds ratio=1.18, 95% CI=1.06-1.31) in the elementary school children. The sulfur dioxide (SO2) and carbon monoxide (CO) exposure in the current day was associated with the lower respiratory symptoms (adjusted odds ratio=1.12, 95% CI=1.01-1.25 for SO2; adjusted odds ratio=1.16, 95% CI=1.02-1.32 for CO). Conclusions : We found that exposure to air pollution affects the daily respiratory symptoms in children. This study suggests that the effect on children's health? due to the short term changes in air pollution levels needs to be considered as an important public health problem.

• 환경영향평가
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• 제5권1호
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• pp.79-85
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• 1996

Simultaneous monitoring in many locations is necessary to evaluate the air quality and analyze future trend of a city, For this purpose, it is essential to install air pollution monitoring network. The first automatic air pollution monitoring network was introduced Seoul in 1973. As of 1995, 20 monitoring stations are now in operation. Concerning the management of the air pollution monitoring network, there was some argument among the relavant scholars, non-governmental organization(NGO) and the government organization. So far, there was no extensive evaluation and analysis about the network. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the representativeness of air quality monitoring network through actual measurement of the concentration of the air pollutant. The concentration of NOx was extensively measured widely in Seoul area three times using the TEA simple measuring technique. Even the judgement level for the area representativeness was lowered to 80%, Ssangmun-dong monitoring station tend to overestimate the pollutant concentration of the covered area. While, Sinlimdong monitoring station tend to underestimate the pollutant concentration of the covered area.

• 한국환경보건학회지
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• 제27권2호
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• pp.100-107
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• 2001

On the planning for the systematic management and control of the air pollution display methods were used to evaluate the spatial pollutant concentration status. This study were conducted to investigate the practical using of Geographic Information System(GIS) technology on the air pollution control and management which were computer-based systems that were used to store and manipulate geographic information in the macro city. In this study 137 samples were corrected by passive samplers and analysed by GC/MSD for 16 VOCs in Seoul (25 distincts) distributed by TM-coordinate(2 km$\times$2km), and finally displayed by Arciew program(version 3.2, ESRI Inc, USA) for windows. The concentration of benzene and toluene showed high level in whole area of seoul area of Seoul and distribution of butylbenzen, trothroloetylene, stylen showed high level in whole area of Seoul except a few distincts and the distribution of isopropylbenzene, 1,2-dichroloethane showed higher level in core area than that of Kangnam and Kangbuk area. In conclusion, products of this study of using GIS technology apply on the spatial distribution of VOCs concentration was very effective than that of other methods(e.g., contouring concentration method, pie or column chart, graduated symbols), especially in mapping and symbolization of pollution status evaluation.

• 한국환경보건학회지
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• 제26권4호
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• pp.134-140
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• 2000

The increase in traffic is a worldwide phenomenon. In Korea, it has been increased by 20% per annual in recent 1990’s and approximately 10 millions cars had been registered until 1997. This traffic could easily affect and contribute the local outdoor air quality(QAQ) concerned. The QAQ in highway in one of the examples and the subject in this study. The seoul tollgate located at the north-end of Keypngbu Highway was selected for the study. In case of highway tollgate, the local air pollution could be directly affected by the traffic to approach, wait and start the tollgate. Nitrogen dioxide (NO$_2$) concentration exceeded the EAQS(Environmental Air Quality Standards), but overall indoor air quality was a little better than the outdoor air quality. The measured TSP concentration was much higher than that of the EAQS. To apply a management to a air quality problem of Seoul tollgate, it was predicted air quality with traffic volume and weather condition. It was calculated NO$_2$ emission with traffic volume and predicted in and out of booth by CALINE3 at the Seoul tollgate. To make a comparison between measured and predicted concentration, the prediction was good. It was shown that NO$_2$ concentration was high in the morning at the from Seoul direction and in the evening at the to Seoul direction. it was thought that NO$_2$ concentration variation was reflected according to the traffic volume.

• 한국대기환경학회지
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• 제29권4호
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• pp.390-406
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• 2013

In Korea, photochemical air pollution has drawn public attention as one of the major environmental issues since 1990s. To abate ozone and air pollution, new legislation was enacted and regulation was reinforced in conjunction with basic researches. As a result, the air quality has been much improved in terms of primary pollutant such as CO and the occurrence of extremely high ozone concentration. In Seoul, on the other hand, concentrations of ozone and exeedance hours of its national standard have increased since 2005, which is intimately coupled with $NO_2$ variations. It indicates the need for further research at long-term bases to improve our understanding on complex processes determining ozone concentrations. In this paper, the characteristics of ozone variation was analyzed with 13-year measurement data obtained in Seoul. In addition, the previous studies and their main results were summarized that have been performed in association with photochemical air pollution in Korea over the last three decades.

• 한국환경보건학회지
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• 제41권4호
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• pp.223-230
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• 2015

Objectives: There is considerable evidence that polluted ambient air contributes to the risk of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Heart rate variability (HRV) is defined as the variation in heartbeat intervals and has been reported as a biological marker of cardiovascular disease. This article reviews the existing literature in order to examine the association between air pollution and HRV. Methods: Literature was searched using Web of Science with the key words of "air pollution", "heart rate variability" and other related terms. A total of 156 articles were listed. For review, 21 of those listed publications were chosen after excluding studies regarding chamber studies, occupational environment, secondhand smoke and automobile exhaust. Results: Research methods employed in the publications were classified by type of participants (elderly/adult), air pollution monitoring (ambient/personal) and HRV monitoring (continuous/spot). Among HRV parameters, power in the low frequency range (LF), power in the high frequency range (HF) and standard deviation of all NN intervals (SDNN) were all associated with air pollutants. The chosen studies were mostly based on elderly populations. In studies based on continuous HRV monitoring, LF and SDNN significantly decreased when $PM_{2.5}$ exposure increased. Conclusion: Continuous HRV monitoring combined with personal exposure monitoring has been one of the most common study methods in recent publications. We expect that this review will be useful for the study of the association between air pollution and cardiovascular effects using HRV.