• Health Policy and Management
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.1-24
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• 1994

Recently, two main changes were observed in relation to activities of District Health Centers. One is the rapid increase in the quantity and variety of people's demands for health services due to improvement of income level and the other is an introduction of autonomy in local administration. Unitl recently, the District Health Services were mostly depended on the instructions and orders given by Central Governments, and it would be necessary to prepare for the future implementation of autonomous local administration. Especially, the urban health centers may need more attention than those in rural areas because of their complexity and it would be more difficult in choosing and implementing a most suitable health programs for urban communities. This study was made to find out a feasibl developmental model which could be applicable for the urban bealth centers in Kyeongnam- do area. The most studies relating to health centers activities in the past were made by saking questions to current health center workers, but this study has made an effort to find out the opinions of those who are representing the people in the community. For this study, therefore, the Members of Gity Parliament and Village Headmen from 10 cities is Kyeongnam- do were interviewed for the study and the results obtained were compared to those of health officers. It was found that both Parliament Members and Village Headmen were well aware of the need of health centers, however, they tend to put lower priority for health services in compare with other community activities, and pointed out poor quality of services and lack of public understanding as the problems to be overcome. As to the desirable body for policy decision and implementation of health programs, the Members of Local Parliament think the Local Parliament as ideal, where as Village Headmen prefer health experts, and health officenr prefer District Health Center respectively. The most urgent problems of the District health Centers are mentioned as lack of health manpower. As the results of his study, the followings are suggested for improvement of District Health Services; First : reinforcement of professional health workers, Second : establishment of Community Health Council, Third : strengthening of public health education and support, Fourth : flexibility in Local Autonomy and target system relating to health activities.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.99-112
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• 2000

This survey was conducted to assess the utilization of health center including health sub-center and community health post and the health service demand of residents in a urban and rural unified community. Officials in Up·Myun·Dong offices visited randomly sampled 4,027 households(4.6% of total households in unified City) which included 3,337 households in urban area(4.9% of total households) and 690 households in rural area(3.7% of total households) and interviewed with heads or housewives of the households in September, 1995. There were significant differences in health-related demographic characteristics including age-sex distribution, educational level, period of residence in the community and medical insurance status of the interviewees between urban and rural areas. Of the respondents, 64.8% in urban area and 55.6% in rural replied that they had utilized the health center in the past. The most common purpose for visiting the health center was to get vaccination in urban area and to get outpatient care in rural area. The top priority health center activity that needs to be reinforced was communicable disease control and over 90% of the respondents preferred to have mobile clinic and home health care service in were also highly demanded. Eighty-six percent of the urban respondents replied that a health sub-center must be established in urban area. In the rural area, 90.3% of the respondents replied that they wanted to maintain the health sub-center and 88.3% wanted to maintain the community health post. Along with the improvement of facilities and equipments of the health center by Rural Health Service Improvement Project, new health service programs must be developed to meet the demand of the community.

• Korean Journal of Adult Nursing
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.67-77
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• 2014

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the prevalence of metabolic syndrome and its components and to examine the related factors in urban and rural community, South Korea. Methods: The data from the 5th Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES-V) conducted in 2010 were utilized in this study. The subjects were 5,760 adults 20 years or over. The data were consisted with health survey questionnaire and health examination. $x^2$-test and logistic regression was used for the analysis SAS 9.3 applying sampling weights. Results: The prevalence of metabolic syndrome based on the latest definition proposed the joint scientific meeting was 23.4% and 29.0% respectively in urban and rural community. Rural community showed higher prevalence of abdominal obesity (29.9% vs 38.5%), elevated blood pressure (31.3% vs 38.5%), elevated blood glucose (24.3% vs 28.4%) than urban community. The related factors were age, marital status, high risk drinking, obesity in urban community and age, marital status high risk drinking, severe physical activity, obesity in rural community. Conclusion: This study showed there was difference in prevalence and the related factors of metabolic syndrome and these findings have important implications to prevent and manage metabolic syndrome in public health field.

• International journal of advanced smart convergence
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.170-178
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• 2022

Purpose: Gardening has been reported to have positive emotional and physical effects in older adults. However, limited studies have assessed this relationship in Korea. Therefore, in this pilot study of densely populated urban dwellers, we aimed to investigate whether temporary but repeated experiences of the natural environment could positively change metabolism-related blood indicators. Methods: This study used pre- and post-interventional designs to investigate the effects of 16 weeks of gardening on lipid profiles in an urban adult population and investigate their relationships. This study was conducted 30 times at the H Botanical Garden in Yongin City from August 16, 2021 to November 30, 2021 (16 weeks, twice a week, 3 hours each time). Before and after the gardening program, a clinical pathologist collected blood samples from the participants. Results: High-density lipoprotein levels increased, low-density lipoprotein levels decreased, and total cholesterol levels decreased after the gardening activity. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that gardening has potential for clinical application as it has good control over the lipid profile through physical activity. These findings can be used as basic data for studying the relationship between urban populations and their living environment and for various studies in the future as experiencing the natural environment provides many health benefits.

• Journal of the Korean Society of School Health
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.306-316
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• 2017

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the operational status and operational problems of health promoting model schools, particularly of the large-sized elementary schools in urban areas. Methods: The study analyzed the data of 14 large-sized elementary schools in urban areas selected from 85 health promoting model schools, an initiative led by the Ministry of Education from 2012 to 2014. Results: The study examined the operation process of health promoting schools in five stages; system development, needs survey & current status survey, school health policy development, program development & execution, and evaluation. In addition, the study discovered three key factors in operating health promoting schools and examined the status of each factor; connection with the curriculum, connection with the community, and consensus among members. Four problems were identified as operational problems: lack of research on faculty health issues, school physical environment and community resources, inadequate presentation of performance indicators, no close coordination in core task development and lack of linkage with the curriculum. Conclusion: It turned out the concept of health promoting school suggested by WHO was relatively faithfully realized in this study. Compared to small-sized elementary schools in rural areas, health promoting schools in this study showed better aspects overall. The connection with the community was good, but the connection with the curriculum was poor.

• The Korean Journal of Food & Health Convergence
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.1-13
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• 2018

The health status of menopause and its correlates among middle aged 160 rural and urban women was studied during 2015. The women who attained menopause and belonging to 40-55 years age range were selected from 8 villages of 4 talukas of Dharwad and Bagalkot Districts. The health status of women was evaluated by using standardized questionnaire, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGI). The structured interview schedule was used to collect personal information like name of the family members with their age, relationship with respondent. The Socio Economic Status (SES) of family was assessed by using Socio Economic Status scale developed by Agarwal (2005). The results revealed that 53.75 per cent respondents shown moderately affected followed by 26.25 per cent mildly affected and 20 per cent of women indicated severely affected health status. The mean value of health status in rural women is higher ($23.67{\pm}7.02$) than mean value of ($21.50{\pm}6.89$) urban women means the rural women had more health problems than urban women. Health status were high negatively significantly related with SES, education and occupation means women belonged to better SES category, literate and working women experienced less health problems compared to women who had poor SES, illiterate and non-working.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.44 no.4
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• pp.330-339
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• 2018

Objectives: The occurrence characteristics of BTEXS and phytoncides were investigated by type of urban forest. Methods: Four types of urban green space (Hongneung Forest, Mt. Chunjang, residential park, and traffic island) and Gwangneung Forest were selected. Monitoring of phytoncides and BTEXS was conducted considering the activity times of urban residents (five times per day) using a Tenax TA tube and suction pump in June 2017 (one day). Results: Phytoncide concentrations were ranked as Gwangneung Forest>Hongneung Forest>Mt. Cheonjang>traffic island>residential park. Relatively high concentrations of phytoncides were also identified in the urban forest. There was no significant difference between Gwangneung Forest and the urban forest. BTEXS concentrations were ranked as traffic island>residential park>Hongneung Forest>Gwangneung Forest>Mt. Cheonjang. Traffic island and residential park showed high levels of BTEXS depending on the inflow of vehicles. The difference in concentration by time was significant for the traffic island in particular. Pollutant levels in Hongneung Forest were as low as in Gwangneung Forest. Conclusion: The concentrations of phytoncides and BTEXS were different by types of urban green space, and the potential for health and hygiene of urban forests were able to be investigated. This study is expected to provide as basic data for the creation of urban forest spaces in the future.

• Journal of Wellbeing Management and Applied Psychology
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.43-50
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• 2022

Purpose: The small-scale environmental impact assessment conducted during the development project stage has focused on the preservation of the natural environment centered on non-urban areas, due to the nature of urbanization, health problems for citizens of high-density urban areas have a limitation in that they are relatively neglected. In the case of strategic environmental impact assessment and environmental impact assessment in urban areas, there is no basis for evaluation in urban areas because there are exceptions to be excluded from the target projects or there are no target project regulations for buildings. Therefore, in this research, we examined the problems with the target project such as the current environmental impact assessment, and tried to establish a system improvement plan that can solve them. Research design, data and methodology: After reviewing the current environmental impact assessment-related laws (including enforcement ordinances) and national land planning laws (including enforcement ordinances), exceptions such as environmental impact assessment in urban areas were identified and problems were identified. Based on this, an amendment to the Enforcement Decree was proposed to provide institutional support for the expansion of target projects such as environmental impact assessment in urban areas. Results and Conclusions: Through this research, it is expected that the projects subject to environmental impact assessment on development projects in urban areas directly related to the health of the people will be expanded, and the net function of the environmental impact assessment system will be maximized.

• Journal of the Korean housing association
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.37-44
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• 2015

The purpose of this study was to compare urban and rural seniors' perceptions on the eight aspects of the World Health Organization Age-Friendly Cities (AFC) initiative on Jeju Island, South Korea. Face-to-face interviews using structured questionnaires were administered to 497 persons aged 65+ living on Jeju Island. Findings suggested that urban and rural held significantly different perceptions on five aspects of AFC (outdoor space and buildings, housing, civic participation and employment, community support and health services, and respect and social inclusion). Predictors of overall AFC score for all participants included age and living in a single-family home. Among urban dwellers, monthly household income and length of residence predicted AFC score while among rural seniors, predictors of AFC included educational attainment. To make communities more age-friendly, perspectives of older residents should be sought, shared, and reflected in policy and different strategies and priorities should be developed specific to urban and rural areas.

• Journal of odor and indoor environment
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.303-314
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• 2018

The urban railway system is a convenient public transportation system, as it carries many people without increasing traffic congestion. However, air quality in urban railway environments is worse than ambient air quality due to the internal location of the source of air pollutants and the isolated space. In this paper, characteristics of particulate matter (PM) pollution in urban railway environments are described from the perspective of diurnal variation, chemical composition and source apportionment of PM. PM concentrations in concourse, platform, passenger cabin, and tunnel are summarized through an analysis of 34 journal articles published in Korea and overseas. This information will be helpful in developing effective policies to reduce PM pollution in urban railway environments.