• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.177-182
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• 2009

Objectives : Both organized and opportunistic screening programs have been widely used in Korea. This paper examined the determinants of the use of opportunistic screening programs in Korea. Methods : The subjects were a national stratified random sample of 10,254 people aged 45 or older from the first wave of the Korean Longitudinal Study of Ageing in 2006. A logit model was used to examine the determinants of the use of opportunistic screening programs in terms of the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, the type of health insurance and the health status. Results : Thirteen point seven percent of the individuals received opportunistic screening programs within 2 years from the time the survey was conducted in 2006. The individuals who graduated from college or who had even more education were 3.0 times more likely to use opportunistic screening programs compared with the individuals who were illiterate. The individuals who resided in urban areas and who had religious beliefs were more likely to receive opportunistic screening programs compared with their counterparts. Those who were in the first quartile for the total household assets were 2.6 times more likely to use opportunistic screening programs than those who were in the fourth quartile for the total household assets. Privately insured people were 1.6 times more likely to use opportunistic screening programs than those who were not insured. Finally, the individuals who self-assessed their health status as worst were 2.1 times more likely to use opportunistic screening programs compared individuals who self-assessed their health status as best. Conclusions : This study suggests that opportunistic screening programs can be an indicator for whether or not an individual is among the advantaged group in terms of their socioeconomic characteristics and type of health insurance.

• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.75-97
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• 2004

Objectives: To examine whether the socioeconomic characteristics of communities (contextual effects) are related to the self-rated health of community residents after controlling individual characteristics (compositional effects). Methods: A linked data set including information on individuals from raw data of 1998 Korean National Health and Nutrition Survey(KNHNS) and information on the regions where the individuals lived from the socioeconomic statistical indices of Si-Gun-Gu (city-county-ward) in 1998 was established. The contextual factors of communities were generated from these socioeconomic indices through factor analysis. The contextual effects of community over and above the individual characteristics on the self-rated health were investigated using multilevel analysis. Results: The contextual factors of the community expressed as the factor scores have influence on the self-rated health of their residents above the compositional factors. When the communities were categorized into 5 groups (highest, high, middle, low, lowest) according to each of their factor scores, for factor 1 reflecting urbanization reversely, the residents of the communities that had the high, middle, and low factor scores showed significantly poor subjective health status than the residents of the lowest (most urbanized) group. For factor 2 reflecting community services and health resources, the subjective health status of the residents gradually became poorer when the group went from the highest to the lowest, and the low and lowest groups showed a significant difference. For factor 3 reflecting the manufacturing industry, as compared with the communities that have the highest factor scores, the other 4 groups showed significantly poorer subjective health status. And for factor 4 reflecting the scale of the regional government, as compared with the middle group, the rest of the 4 groups showed significantly better self-rated health. Conclusions: There existed regional contextual effects on their residents' health in Korean adults. To make policies tackling these contextual effects possible, more elaborate researches to find more specific factors and to explain the mechanisms of how health is influenced by the contextual factors are needed.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.61-74
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• 2010

The present study sought to examine parent-child relational factors associated with young child's language abilities according to socioeconomic status. To do so, the survey responses of 2,269 parents of 0- to 5- year-olds, taken from research on the Actual Condition of Korean Children and Youth were analyzed. The results were as follows : (1) Low-income families had significantly fewer toys related to literacy than middle and upper-income families. (2) There were fewer instances of parent-child play interactions as well as lower scores of parenting styles and beliefs in low-income families than in middle and upper-income families. (3) Although there was no difference in terms of language abilities from 0- to 1-year-old children according to socioeconomic status, 2-, 3-, 4- and 5-year-old children from low-income families exhibited significantly lower language scores than children from middle- and upper-income families. (4) Toys related to literacy and parent-child relational factors were positively related to children's language abilities. (5) It can be further argued that toys related to literacy and parent-child relational factors clearly predict children's language abilities.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.71-87
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to investigate perceptions of the self-efficacy of youth (self-confidence, self-regulatory efficacy, and task difficulty preference) and the subjective quality of life. The participants in this research were 697 university students 314 males and 383 females. All respondents submitted their answers on a self-report questionnaire. The data were analyzed with descriptive statistics, t-tests, Pearson's correlations, and multiple regression analyses. The major results of this study were as follows: (a) Young males exhibited higher levels of self-efficacy perception compared to young females. Regarding the subjective quality of life, gender was not a significant factor. (b) The subjective quality of life was highly correlated with the self-efficacy of youth (self-confidence, self-regulatory efficacy, and task difficulty preference). (c) Self-satisfaction, self-confidence regarding one's career, satisfaction with one's friends, satisfaction with one's parental relationship, quantity of reading, and the amount of study-time all had significant influences on the self-efficacy of youth, whereas the family's socioeconomic status and campus life satisfaction were not significant factors. (d) Self-efficacy had the strongest influence on the youth subjective quality of life. Self-satisfaction, campus life satisfaction, and satisfaction with friends all had significant influences on the youth subjective quality of life, whereas the quantity of reading, the amount of study-time, self-confidence with one's career, the family's socioeconomic status, and satisfaction with one's parental relationship were not significant factors. However, self-confidence with one's career, satisfaction with one's parental relationship, the family's socioeconomic status, and quantity of reading all had different levels of influence on the subjective quality of life for young males and females.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.217-229
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• 2014

This study was performed to identify neighborhood deprivation indicators associated with health and to test the contextual effects of those indicators on individual health. This study calculated SMR based on Dong district and see the differences of prediction across deprivation index and indicators. Then, a multi-level analysis using HGLM was conducted to test the contextual effect of neighborhood depreivation indicators on health after controlling for demographic and socioeconomic status of individuals. The results showed that regional SMR had strong correlations with land price, education, welfare recipients, female household proportion in Dong district but failed to show the correlation with individual health and neighborhood deprivation. Individual health was only associated with individual level of demographic and socioeconomic status. That is, spatial dispersion of illness is understood as the distribution of social classes in terms of socioeconomic status of individuals, not the contextual aspects of community.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.54 no.3
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• pp.161-165
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• 2021

Objectives: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) spreads heterogeneously, disproportionately impacting poor and minority communities. The relationship between poverty and race is complex, with a diverse set of structural and systemic factors driving higher rates of poverty among minority populations. The factors that specifically contribute to the disproportionate rates of SARS-CoV-2 infection, however, are not clearly understood. Methods: We evaluated SARS-CoV-2 test results from community-based testing sites in Los Angeles, California, between June and December, 2020. We used tester zip code data to link those results with United States Census report data on average annual household income, rates of healthcare coverage, and employment status by zip code. Results: We analyzed 2 141 127 SARS-CoV-2 test results, of which 245 154 (11.4%) were positive. Multivariable modeling showed a higher likelihood of SARS-CoV-2 test positivity among Hispanic communities than among other races. We found an increased risk for SARS-CoV-2 positivity among individuals from zip codes with an average annual household income

• The Journal of Korean Society for School & Community Health Education
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.69-84
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• 2019

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to examine change in adolescent depression across time and to determine the relation between individual and neighborhood socioeconomic status (SES) and depression. Methods: This study employed multilevel latent growth analysis using longitudinal data from Korea Children and Youth Panel Survey. A sample of this study consists of 2,351 adolescents who were in first grade of middle school in 2010. Results: Results showed that both initial level and downward trajectory of depression varied significantly across individuals as well as across neighborhoods. On the individual level, self-rated economic condition(b=-0.203, p<.001) was related to the initial level of depression. Adolescents whose father had a high educational level(b=0.028, p<.001) or whose mother had a low educational level(b=-0.022, p=.011) had lower rates of decline in adolescent depression. On the neighborhood level, neighborhood deprivation index (b=0.003, p=.019) and gini coefficient(b=0.124, p=.040) were associated with lower rates of decline in depression. Conclusions: Low SES in adolescence is correlated with worse mental health, especially depression. Social disparities in depression likely originate before adulthood. The findings argue for the importance of understanding depression in adolescence from a multilevel or ecological framework.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.170-178
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• 2010

We conducted this study to determine the factors associated with childhood obesity. The subjects were 170 preschool children in Busan. Data were collected by using questionnaires which asked for information about socioeconomic status, parental perception of their child's weight status and dietary/physical activity behavior. BMI was calculated for each child and their classification was determined, according to their age and sex, as follows: "overweight" at or above the 85th percentile, "normal" for the 15th-85th percentile, and with a BMI below the 15th percentile the children were deemed as underweight. Classification according to BMI percentile showed that 23.5% ($18.25{\pm}1.33\;kg/m^2$) of the children were overweight, 62.9% ($15.51{\pm}0.76\;kg/m^2$) normal, and 13.5% ($13.23{\pm}2.86\;kg/m^2$) were underweight. Socioeconomic status, as represented by the parents' level of education, the occupation of the father and the household income, did not affect the results. However, mothers working outside the household was a factor that was more likely to affect the weight status (p<0.05). Among mothers whose children were overweight, 30% underestimated their children's weight status (believing them to be of normal weight when they were overweight), and 25% failed to recognize the necessity of weight control for their overweight children. While sedentary activity and total daily activity levels were not related to BMI, the level of physically active leisure activity was inversely correlated with BMI (p<0.05). Although there were no differences in total energy intake, dietary behavior was significantly related to weight status. Overweight children had poor eating tendancies: they eat faster (in less than 15 minutes), overeat, and eat late at night. Based on our findings where hereby recommended the following interventions to help limit weight problems in Korean pre-schoolers: early promotion of active leisure behavior and healthy eating habits, along with attempting to correct parental misperception of healthy weight status for children.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.1865-1871
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• 2015

While health information-seeking behavior as an indicator of health communication of patients including cancer survivors has been researched, few studies have focused on how socioeconomic position and media use combine to influence health-related information seekers. This study examined social characteristics of health information-seeking behavior taking into account an individual's socioeconomic position and their media use in Korea, a developed country. The data for this study came from a survey of 1,010 respondents drawn from a nationally representative sample in the Republic of Korea. We conducted multivariate logistic regression analyses for gender-specific effects. We found that men who reported high household income were one and half times more likely to seek health information than those with low income status. We also found that women who performed Internet searches by computer at home were almost two times more likely to seek health information than those who did not. Similar results were found for men as well. Our analyses revealed that socioeconomic position and media use are associated with health information-seeking behavior by gender. Studies on information seekers may bring us more effective health promotion and relevant intervention for people with chronic conditions including cancer survivors.

• Journal of Korean Biological Nursing Science
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.98-106
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• 2017

Purpose: This study aimed to analyze the relationships between the factors affecting health levels of the elderly in rural areas. Methods: Subjects were 257 elderly people residing in rural areas of six cities and Gangwon Province. Data was collected through questionnaires (demographic and socioeconomic status, social resources, health behaviors, physical environment, psychological tendency and general health levels) and was analyzed by using multiple regression and Sobel test. Results: The demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of the subjects exerted statistically significant influence on their social resources, health behaviors, physical environment, and psychological tendencies. The demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, social resources, health behaviors, physical environment, and psychological tendencies, in turn, exerted a statistically significant influence on the health level. The social resources had mediating effects on the relationship between income, one of the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, and health level. The residential environments had mediating effects on the relationship between income and health level. The psychological tendency had mediating effects on the relationship between income and health level. Conclusion: This study suggests that income is an important factor affecting health level among rural elderly people. In addition, social resources, health behaviors, physical environment, and psychological tendencies among them also affect health level, so it is necessary to make strategies to improve these factors.