• Health Policy and Management
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.40-54
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• 1999

The purpose of this study is to compare the health service utilization patterns between up and myun and to find the determinants of utilization. For this purpose. this study used different versions of utilization rates. such as crude utilization rates. utilization rates adjusted for population composition. and age-sex adjusted utilization rates. Data used in this analysis were the Community Health Interview Survey which was conducted by interviewing 741 households from August 31 to September 11, 1998 in HongCheon-Gun. KangWon-Do. The major findings of the analysis are summarized as follows: 1. There was a statistically significant difference in the level of health service utilization between up and myun. Depending upon the unit of analysis employed (those who were interviewed vs those who were sick). the difference between up and myun was reversed. 2. Determinants of health service utilization are analyzed using logistic regression. The result showed that predisposing factor influenced health service utilization in rural areas, while the enabling factor didn't.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.41-48
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• 1978

To examine the result of the government Medical Aid Program which began in January, 1977 as a part of social security policy implementation, all the medical records of the clients and official statistics in the year were analysed. The specific objectives this study pursues include the magnitudes and patterns of morbidity and utilization, and the characteristics of clients. One Korean rural area, Koje county was selected as the study area and subsequently all the clinics and hospitals assigned to work out the Aid Program are the subjects for the survey. A brief summary of the sutdy results as follows: a. The clients of Koje county are 6.4% of the total population in the area, more than the average percentage of the clients in Korea. It reflects on low level of economic status of the residents of the area. b. The population structure of the clients indicates that the large proportions of young and old age group are overwhelming, while the middle age group share very small portions. c. The utilization rates for primary care are 2.0 persons, 11.6 visits and 22.6 treatment days per 100 persons per months. Annual hospitalization is rated as 13.7 cases and 164 days per 1,000 persons, The utilization rates are slightly lower than those expected rates during planning period but eventually become higher than those of general population in rural Korea. d. The factors which influence the utilization rates are identified with client group (low income vs indigent), age and sex. e. The utilization pattern for primary care demonstrates seasonal variation similar to the pattern of general rural population in the low income group, but none in the indigent group. f. The most common diseases revealed at the primary care clinics are the acute respiratory infection (26.9%), acute gastritis (10.8%), skin and subcutaneous infection (6.8%). The cases of acute conditions are outnumbered than the cases of chronic condition. 8. The clinics, hospitals and other related health institutions are well cooperated in dealing health care services in their own capacities. Considering the above results Medical Aid Program generated satisfactory results at least in the utilization aspect.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.42-53
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• 1991

Analysis of health care utilization is very important for health care policy development. Traditional studies of health care utilization were focused on measuring the level of health care utilization and on analyzing the determinants of health care utilization in the defined areas and populations. But there were some limitations in comparing the health care utilizations rates in traditional studies because so many factors were to be considered. Small area analysis is a method used to demonstrate substantial variations in health care utilization with popualtion-base use rates among similar geographic areas. This review discusses the methods, magnitude and trend of geographic variations, factors influencing small area variations, and makes suggestions for further study. Finally, the article discusses the necessity and feasibility of small area analysis in Korea.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.142-156
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• 1996

The purposes of this study were to examine the reason, = of clothing discard and to investigate the influences of demographic and clothing variables on the clothing discard behavior Data were collected from 610 women who lived in Seoul and Kwangjoo. By means of factor analysis, 6 general factors of clothing discard reason.; were extracted The 6 factors were named as dissatisfaction with appropriateness, physically worn out, dissatisfaction with clothing quality, fashion change, boredom, inconvinience. Among the five clothing items (suits or one pieces, jackets, jumpers, shirts or blouses, skirts or pants), there existed differences in the reason factors of clothing discard The relationships between clothing discard behavior (reason factors of clothing discard, peviods of clothing utilization) and variables like user's age, degrees of satisfaction with clothing, clothing items were also examined. There existed significant differences among the age groups and the groups classified by clothing satisfaction degrees in the reason factors of clothing discard and in the Periods of clothing utilization. Periods of clothing utilization were also differed by the clothing items. As user's a age grew older, periods of clothing utilization increased and the rates of clothing discard because of dissatisfaction with appropriateness, and dissatisfaction with clothing quality, boredom, inconvinience factors were decreased. As the degrees of satisfaction with clothes increased, the periods of clothing utilization also increased and the rates of clothing discard because of dissatisfaction with appropriateness, and dissatisfaction with clothing quality, inconvinience factors decreased. And the rates of clothing discard because of physically worn out factor increased.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.99-106
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• 1979

Accessibility to medical facilities and personnels has been known as one of important determinants of medical care utilization. This study attempted to identify the effects of medical accessibility in terms of geographical distance and occupational opportunity to the medical utilizations. Two-year-experiences of Yonsei University Health Insurance Cooperatives were used as the sources of data. Out patient utilization patterns of 713 members sampled from 4,352 members of Health Insurance Cooperatives were analyzed in order to identify the effects of medical accessibilities. Findings: 1 Average clinic visit rate of Yonsei Health Insurance is 1.66 per person per year. 2. The utilization rates of geographically more accessible group were 33% higher than that of less accessible group. 3. No marked difference in clinic visit rate were observed between medical and non-medical personnel and their family members. 4. Clinic visit rates among occupationally accessible group were slightly higher than those of less accessible. The utilization rate was more sensitively changed by the insurance policy changes in occupationally accessible group.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.143-166
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• 2007

This study examined the effects of employees' gender role attitudes, job involvement, and family involvement on their work-family conflicts, work-family facilitation, and utilization of family-friendly corporate policies. Data was collected from 377 full-time married workers from 262 large (more than 300 employees) and 100 small (fewer than 300 employees) private sector companies. The questionnaire's measurements were based on recommendations from the literature review. The questionnaire consisted of the gender role attitude scales, job and family involvement scales, work-family conflict and facilitation scales, and questions pertaining to the employee's utilization of family-friendly corporate policies. The SPSS 12.0 statistical package was used to analyze the collected data. The study found that employees showed more or less egalitarian gender role attitudes and that they were more involved in their family than their job. The employees' responses showed a low rate of utilizing family-friendly policies, but employees from large companies reported a higher utilization of family-friendly policies than those from small companies. There were also gender differences in employees' gender role attitudes, work and family involvement, and utilization of policies. Male workers held more traditional gender role attitudes, had higher levels of job involvement, and had higher rates of utilization of policies than female employees. Meanwhile, employees with children exhibited more traditional gender role attitudes and higher rates of utilization of policies than those without children. Finally, serial hierarchical regression analyses revealed that employees' more egalitarian gender role attitudes and higher job and family involvement predict higher work-family facilitation, while their gender role attitudes and job and family involvement have no significant influence on work-family conflicts. Also, employees from large companies with high job involvement will have significantly higher utilization rates of family-friendly corporate policies.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.21 no.2 s.24
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• pp.419-430
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• 1988

This study was performed in a rural community, Kanghwa county which was introduced to a regional medical insurance pilot program in 1982. The purposes of this study were, firstly, to observe the changes in ambulatory care utilization in the three years 1982, 1983 and 1987 : secondly, to analyse factors which convert perceived medical care needs to effective medical care demand. During the three periods, a serial interview survey was performed to determine the changes in medical utilization before and after the regional medical insurance program implementation. The number of subjects was 3,356 persons in the year 1982, 3,705 in 1983 and 2,745 in 1987. The results of the study were as follows : 1. Total ambulatory care utilization rates per 100 persons during a 2-week period were 23.6 in the year 1982, 21.8 in 1983, and 29.3 in 1987; and physician visit rates were 6.1 in 1982, 11.7 in 1983, and 14.9 in 1987. Thus, compared to the total utilization rate there was a definite increase in physician visit, and during the study periods there was a decrease in drug store visits whereas an increase in hospital or clinic visits was noticed. 2. The rates of effective demand for medical care need were 70.7% in 1982, 70.5% in 1983 and 75.9% in 1987 : and the rates of patients who visited physicians were 20.2% in 1982, 42.8% in 1983 and 35.6% in 1987. Thus, physician visits increased sharply by introducing the medical insurance program, but after the latent medical care demands were fulfilled, there was a slight decrease in the physician visits. 3. The number of acute symptoms and the number of chronic symptoms were common determinants of total ambulatory care utilization and physician visits. Besides the medical care need factors, age in 1982, sex and accessibility in 1983, and accessibility in 1987 were statistically significant determinants of the total utilization ; sex and accessibility in 1983, and education in 1987 were also statistically significant determinants of the physician visit. 4. For persons with perceived acute symptoms during the 2-week periods, accessibility in total utilization and age in physician visits were common discriminating factors of ambulatory care utilization in the three years, and education and income were also statistically significant variables. For persons with perceived chronic symptoms, occupation and income were statistically significant discriminating variables commonly observed in total utilization and physician visits.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.72-109
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• 1999

This study is conducted to investigate the current status on the utilization of health care and plan for solving this problem. The claims data of the fiscal tear 1995 obtained from the regional health insurance society are used for the study. The main findings of the study are summarized as follows. Indexes(The Extremal Quotient(EQ), coefficients of variance(CV's))which represent the regional difference in the admission rate of the tertiary medical diagnosis group report that there is difference in quantity and quality of utilization of health care. The admission rate is lower in the big city areas, Kyoungkido, Kangwondo and Chunlapukdo. Even after age-sex adjustment, the admission rate is still low in Kangwondo, Chunlapukdo and Kyoungsangpukdo. The big city areas tend to have higher rates in the expenses per claim, hospital days per claim, and daily expenses but the rates are still low in some area in Kangwondo, Chunlanamdo and Kyoungsangpukdo. This result remains as same after age-sex adjustment. There is a large regional difference in average utilization rate for the tertiary hospital of the tertiary medical diagnosis group: 57.2%(SD 11.53). The utilization rates for the tertiary hospital in their large catchment area are 96.34%, 83.19% and 73.22% in each Kyoungin, Kyoungnam and Kyoungpuk areas whereas it is lower in a Chungpuk and Chungnam areas. The regional differences of health care utilization of the tertiary medical diagnosis group gave some relationships with their geographical characteristics such as socio-economic characteristics and supply factors of medical services. It is important that many medical policies should be developed in order to minimize and balance out the regional differences of health care utilization. The service allocation policy should include the reconstruction of manpower policy, developing the resource allocating formula, finding the self-sufficient catchment area and reforcing of public health services. Moreover, in order to achieve the balanced development by region, they should investigate and consider each county's microscopic properties under the consistent macrocopic policy. The further studies to find causes of regional difference are needed.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.89-96
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• 2010

This study examines how frequently employers offer family-friendly corporate programs and how frequently employees use the programs. This study also seeks to discover whether the implementation and utilization of family-friendly corporate programs results in an increase in employees' childbirths. Data were collected from 377 married full-time employees working in private sector companies located in Seoul and GyeongGi-Do. Frequency analyses of the employees' responses showed moderate rates of implementation of family-friendly corporate programs and much lower rates of employees' utilization. The hierarchical regression analysis revealed that the implementation of family-friendly corporate programs significantly predicted employees' childbirths. However, this was ineffective, having no significant influence on employees' childbirths, when their utilization of the programs was entered into the model. Higher rates of utilization of family-friendly corporate programs predicted more childbirths after employment. This study suggests that the implementation of family-friendly corporate programs per se is not a complete solution to get employees to have more babies. Rather, what matters is the usability of those programs. Finally, the implications of the study results are discussed.

• Ocean and Polar Research
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.415-423
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• 2004

An experiment was conducted to investigate the differences of total ammonia nitrogen (TAN) excretion rates and feces production rates among the offsprings from cultured Japanese strain (JJ, mean BW; $17.1{\pm}0.1g$), intraspecific hybrid strain between cultured Japanese and selected Korean strain (JK, mean BW: $17.1{\pm}0.1g$) and selected Korean strain(KK, mean BW: $21.5{\pm}0.1g$) of red sea bream in order to compare their dietary protein utilization efficiency. Fish were hand-fed with a commercial diet containing 46.7% crude protein for 2 weeks, three times daily 09:00, 13:00 and 17:00. After daily feeding, the TAN excretion rates reached peaks of 49.03, 58.75 and 36.26mg/kg fish/hr for the JJ, JK and KK strain, respectively, during the daytime. The value of the KK strain was significantly lower than that of the JJ and JX shuin (P<0.05), however daily TAN excretion rates of the JJ, JK and KK strain were not different (P>0.05). When fish were fed at satiation after 4 days of starvation, TAN excretion rates reached the maximum values 4 hours after the feeding fur the KK (31.23 mg/kg fish/hr) and 6 hours after the feeding fur the JJ (44.19 mg/tg fish/hr) and JK strain (41.70 mg/kg fish/hr). After 3 days of starvation, the daily endogenous TAU excretion rates (ETE) for the JJ, JK. and KK strain were 286.91, 215.66 and 179.29mg/kg fish/day, respectively. The value of the KK strain was lower than that of the JJ and JK strain (P<0.05). The total feces production rates of the JJ, JK and KK strain were not significantly different, however the proportions of feces production rates by time for the JJ, JK and KK strain were different (P<0.05). As overall results, efficiency of dietary protein utilization of JJ, JK and KK seems to be different and KK strain could offer a desirable option for aquaculture purpose.