• Health Policy and Management
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.369-377
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• 2018

Background: Catastrophic health expenditure (CHE) occurs when medical expenditure of a household passes over a certain ratio of household income. This research studied the effect of gender on CHE based on Korea Health Panel data. Methods: This study implemented binary logistic regression model to figure out whether gender affects CHE and how different gender groups show pattern of CHE process. With gender, age, marital status, income level, economic activity, membership of private insurance, existence of chronic disease, and self-rated health were included in the model. Results: Results showed that females faced CHE 1.5 times more than males (odds ratio, 1.241). Also, main determinants of CHE in female groups were marital status, while age and economic activity status were significant in male groups. Subgroup analysis displayed that married female under 35 years old are located in intersectionality of CHE including pregnancy and delivery, multiple health risk behaviors, mental stress, and relatively vulnerable social status due to lower income. Meanwhile, both gender above 50 years old faced remarkably high chance of CHE, which seems to be caused by complex health risk behaviors and chronic diseases. Conclusion: Such results implied not only that gender is an important determinant of CHE, but also other determinants of CHE differ according to gender, which suggests a necessity of gender-based CHE support and rescue policy.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.264-276
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• 2021

Background: Salt marshes provide a variety of ecosystem services; however, they are vulnerable to human activity, water level fluctuations, and climate change. Analyses of the relationships between plant communities and environmental conditions in salt marshes are expected to provide useful information for the prediction of changes during climate change. In this study, relationships between the current vegetation structure and environmental factors were evaluated in the tidal flat at the southern tip of Ganghwa, Korea, where salt marshes are well-developed. Results: The vegetation structure in Ganghwa salt marshes was divided into three groups by cluster analysis: group A, dominated by Phragmites communis; group B, dominated by Suaeda japonica; and group C, dominated by other taxa. As determined by PERMANOVA, the groups showed significant differences with respect to altitude, soil moisture, soil organic matter, salinity, sand, clay, and silt ratios. A canonical correspondence analysis based on the percent cover of each species in the quadrats showed that the proportion of sand increased as the altitude increased and S. japonica appeared in soil with a relatively high silt proportion, while P. communis was distributed in soil with low salinity. Conclusions: The distributions of three halophyte groups differed depending on the altitude, soil moisture, salinity, and soil organic matter, sand, silt, and clay contents. Pioneer species, such as S. japonica, appeared in soil with a relatively high silt content. The P. communis community survived under a wider range of soil textures than previously reported in the literature; the species was distributed in soils with relatively low salinity, with a range expansion toward the sea in areas with freshwater influx. The observed spatial distribution patterns may provide a basis for conservation under declining salt marshes.

• Journal of Naturopathy
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.48-55
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• 2021

Purpose: People with intellectual disabilities are vulnerable to the use of receptive and expressive vocabulary. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect on the receptive vocabulary and the expressive vocabulary after teaching reading education to adults with intellectual disabilities living in facilities using picture fairy tales. Methods: The subjects of this study were 12 adults with intellectual disabilities under the age of 20 to 40 residing in residential facilities. They were divided into 6 test groups and 6 control groups, and gave a total of 12 sessions of 60 minutes per session, and reading instruction using picture fairy tales. Results: In the test group that conducted reading activities using picture fairy tales, the use of the receptive vocabulary was significantly improved, and the use of the expressive vocabulary was significantly improved. There were no significant results in all of the control groups. Conclusions: This study had the effect of improving the use of receptive vocabulary and expressive vocabulary after teaching reading using picture fairy tales for the disabled. It is estimated that this result will be the basis for research in this field.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.497-505
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• 2018

This study was conducted to investigate the characteristics of private health insurance subscribers and non-subscribers as they relate to severely ill patients, and to identify the factors of participation. The study was conducted using the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey for 2015, and data were analyzed using SPSS ver. 23.0. The subjects were 417 patients with severe disease (cancer, heart disease, cerebrovascular disease) over 19 years of age. Crossover analysis was employed to identify differences between the state of private health insurance participation, while binary logistic regression analysis was used to confirm the factors affecting private health insurance subscription. Analysis of the effects of the subjects on the private health insurance participation rate revealed that the social and demographic characteristics were higher in younger individuals regardless of sex, residence, or marital status. Moreover, higher household income, regardless of the education level, was associated with a higher participation rate of health insurance target individuals compared to medical benefit target individuals. The private health insurance participation rate was low and the explaining power was 51.7%, regardless of subjective health awareness and walking practice. Therefore, efforts should be made to improve the living environment and support local governmental programs for the elderly, low income households, socially vulnerable groups with limited activities and groups with limited health behavior. It is also necessary to consider various health policies, such as providing government health education or programs to prevent severe illness.

• Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.62-70
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• 2000

Nutrition education should be an important component of ongoing health promotion for older adults and their caregivers. This is because prevention through sound nutrition and food hygiene practices and regular excercise is the most cost-effective way to reduce risks for and deal with their major health problems. nutritions education services should effectively promote optimum intake and successful self-care. Unfortunately, however relative to other vulnerable groups, nutrition education for older adults has not been systematically developed or evaluated. Usually oder adults care a lot about their health, so this should be a relatively easy group to teach - but their increasing numbers, longevity and great diversity with respect to health, physical, and economic status and educational level present challenges. Some older adults may not perceive they would benefit from nutrition education, so interesting and motivating them is a challenge. The food and nutrition knowledge of older people has been acquired through a lifetime of experience. For most older adults in the Asian region, their sources are restricted by their restricted education, so that their major sources of information have been informal sources, such as television, radio, friends, family, and perhaps newspapers and magazines if they are literature. Nonetheless, dietary advice for older people should build on their existing knowledge and ingrained values. It should provide information useful in daily food selection, and focus on food, not nutrients - the same foods and groups considered appropriate for younger people, with consistent messages as given throughout the population. Attention must also be paid to discovering learning styles in older people. When we teach in schools, the young students are a captive audience resigned to their learning role. Learning by an older adult, however, reflects an effort to meet his or her perceived needs. Therefore, nutrition education should be a positive experience in a non-threatening environment, relaxed and non-competitive, and perhaps even social environment. The messages also need to be practical and achievable. A needs assessment is essential, because our ability to provide the most effective nutrition education will depend on our success in matching the needs, both perceived and unperceived. of this vulnerable group. Therefore, go to the potential older learners to assess their interest and preferences. Nutrition education activities for older adults are widespread, but few have been evaluated. Evaluation is therefore also recommended, particularly when new methods are used. Tips from other countries for giving successful nutrition education will be given, including some examples of applications as attempted in Hong Kong. Research needs will also be described. In conclusion, successful nutrition education for older adults depends on positive needs-based messages. This is may be hard to do, as few good examples are available to illustrate these principles.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.91-97
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• 2007

A survey of risk perception in Korea was conducted in 2001 with a special emphasis on industrial and technological risks. This article summarizes the characteristics of risk perception in consideration of socio-demographic background of respondents. The survey with sample size of 1,870 evaluates the perceived level of 25 risk items in the areas of transportation, chemicals, environment, industry, and nuclear power generation. Risks are categorized by using factor analysis to clarify attitudinal or behavioral properties of risk perception. Research findings show that the level of perceived risk does not correspond to the statistical level. Socio-demographic variables are significant predictors in explaining risk perception, or the discrepancies between "subjective" and "objective" risks. Effective risk communication can reduce the perceptional discrepancies, improve the awareness of technological risks, and ultimately facilitate the process of making and implementing policies for risk management and safety regulation. This article tries to provides policy guidelines for "Who is the target for risk communication" and "Which risk has the policy priority for safety improvement." Married females at the age of 30s and 40s with lower education and lower income in small cities are more vulnerable to risk misperception than other groups. More information and knowledge regarding unfamiliar, intangible, new technological risks should be delivered to the vulnerable groups for reducing perceptional bias. Society-wide safety can be improved by integrating policy, human, and social factors as well as techno-engineering advances.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.19 no.7
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• pp.546-558
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• 2019

Health inequality means health gaps that can be affected adverse effects to the vulnerable groups in a society. Many scholars argue that it is needed social interventions to reduce health gaps between the vulnerable and the privileged in a society, because social inequalities can be caused and resulted health inequality among them. In this context, this article introduces Korean out of school children health check-up as part of the policies to reduce health inequality in the society. For a long time, many out of school children have been alienated from the national health checkup systems. That means they are not only marginalized groups in Korean society, but also excluded from the benefits of health promotion and health management. Many runaway youths are struggling to live by themselves, who are escaped from their families and they don't have enough resources to keep their health. They are also young and low waged workers who are expelled to the streets, while they don't have any support and protection from the communities. Out of school children health checkup has been conducted to the adolescents who stay in the shelters or study in alternative schools. To get meaningful results as the health inequality reduction policy, it is needed to expand out of children health checkup to the runaway teenagers.

• 재활복지
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.63-88
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• 2017

This study evaluated the actual status of special needs of the hearing-impaired person for disaster response. The analysis revealed a significant level of unmet needs in disaster response for hearing-impaired person. The 5 special needs in disaster response include: 1) communication needs, which involve securing the means to make an emergency rescue request and communicating information during the rescue process; 2) transportation needs, which indicate the effective evacuation capacity and the level of training; 3) medical needs, which address the degree of preparedness for physical and mental emergency measures and the delivery of health information for rescue and first aid process; 4) maintaining functional independence needs, which refer to the level of self-preparedness to minimize damage in disaster situations, and; 5) supervision needs, which correspond to a personalized support system provided to disaster-vulnerable groups.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.48-55
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• 2021

Objectives: This study was conducted to estimate the dietary iodine intake of Koreans by a Total Diet Study (TDS) which provides 'closer-to-real' estimates of exposure to hazardous materials and nutrients through an analysis of table-ready (cooked) samples of foods. Methods: Dietary intake data from 2013-2017 Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES) was used to select representative foods (RFs) for iodine analysis. A total of 115 RFs were selected and 158 'RF × cooking method-combination' pairs were derived by pairing each RF to corresponding cooking method(s) used more frequently. RFs were collected from 9 mega-markets in 9 metropolitan cities nationwide and mixed into composites prior to cooking preparation to a 'table ready' state for iodine analysis by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. Iodine intake of Koreans was estimated based on the food intake data of the 2016-2018 KNHANES. Results: High iodine content was detected in seaweeds such as sea mustard and kelp. The mean iodine intake/capita/day was 418.4 ㎍ and the median value was 129.0 ㎍. Seaweeds contributed to 77.4% of the total iodine intake and the contribution by food item was as follows: sea mustard (44.0%), kelp (20.4%), laver (13.1%), milk (3.9%), egg (3.5%). Compared to the Dietary Reference Intakes for Koreans 2020, the proportion of people with iodine intake exceeding the tolerable upper intake level or below the estimated average requirement was high in the physiologically vulnerable groups (infants, children, pregnant women, and lactating women). Conclusions: The results, drawn from a TDS, are regarded closer to real estimates for iodine intake of Koreans compared with values in existing literature, which were based on a very limited variety of foods. On the other hand, it seems necessary to seek out solutions for the problematic iodine intake among physiologically vulnerable groups through in-depth analyses on food intake data collected with significant scale & quality.

• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.63-79
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• 2003

This study has examined the degree of depression and anxiety among high school students in an urban area and then explored the factors influencing their depression and/or anxiety status. Self-administered questionnaires were offered to 2,381 students from ten high schools in Daejon Metropolitan City. The items for investigation included such factors as various characteristics of school and family life, daily life style, and the degree of depression and anxiety. Based on the study results, the following conclusions were made； 1. The distribution according to the depression degree has shown that 61.9％ of students were normal, 32.9％ of students had mild depression, 5.0％ moderate depression, and 0.3％ severe depression. As for anxiety, 40.2％ of students were normal, while 19.1％ were classified as having anxiety and 40.7％ borderline anxiety. 2. As regards to the degree of depression and anxiety, it was greater in girls than boys, in 3rd graders than 1st and 2nd graders, and in the groups who have recieved lower grades in studies, who had poor relations with their friends and a low feeling of satisfaction with school life. In particular, concerning various characteristics of family life, the scores of depression and anxiety were higher in the groups whose financial conditions were poor, whose parents' interests were lower, whose degree of satisfaction with their family and school life was lower, than their counterparts. 3. According to their life styles higher scores of depression and anxiety were found in the groups whose sleeping time was inappropriate, whose breakfasts were skipped, who ate daily snacks, who didn't take regular exercises, and who had poor health habits, compared to their counterparts, respectively. 4. As for the correlation between the degree of depression and its associated variables, the higher scores of depression were in positive correlation with the groups who had lower grades in studies, poor relation with their friends, low feeling of satisfaction with school and home life, low parents' interest, poor subjective condition of health, breakfast skipping, lack of regular exercises, and lower indices of health habits. 5. As for anxiety, the higher scores of anxiety were in the positive correlation with the groups with poor relation with their friends, low feeling of satisfaction with school and family life, poor subjective condition of health, lack of regular exercises, and poor health habits. 6. The influential factors on the depression of students were selected such as subjective condition of health, sex, feeling of satisfaction with family and school life, grades in studies, relation with their friends, presence of regular exercises, degree of interest of parents, sleeping time, cigarette smoking and eating breakfast. 7. The influential factors on the anxiety state of students were selected such as subjective condition of health, feeling of satisfaction with family and school life, sex, sleeping time, regular exercises, cigarette smoking, snacking and relations with their friends. The present study results suggest that girls rather than boys, higher graders than lower ones are more vulnerable to anxiety and depression state, and besides, various characteristics of school and family life, and daily life style can be influential on students' emotional states. Therefore, better management of psychological status of students is thought to require a wide variety of measures to modify the influencing factors and to encourage social support.