• Health Policy and Management
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.271-278
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• 2016

Background: This study purposed to analyze the relationship between regional obesity rates and regional variables. Methods: Data was collected from the Korean Statistical Information Service (KOSIS) and Community Health Survey in 2012. The units of analysis were administrative districts such as city, county, and district. The dependent variable was the age-sex adjusted regional obesity rates. The independent variables were selected to represent four aspects of regions: health behaviour factor, psychological factor, socio-economic factor, and physical environment factor. Along with the traditional ordinary least square (OLS) regression analysis model, this study applied geographically weighted regression (GWR) analysis to calculate the regression coefficients for each region. Results: The OLS results showed that there were significant differences in regional obesity rates in high-risk drinking, walking, depression, and financial independence. The GWR results showed that the size of regression coefficients in independent variables was differed by regions. Conclusion: Our results can help in providing useful information for health policy makers. Regional characteristics should be considered when allocating health resources and developing health-related programs.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Rural Health Nursing
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.11-20
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• 2006

Purpose: To compare of health inequalities between rural and urban areas in term of health status, health behaviors and medical care utilization by using national-wide data. Method: The data came from the 2000 and 2005 census data, 2004 death certification statistics and 2001 national health and nutrition survey. The health indicators used in this study were mortality, perceived health status, health related behaviors, morbidity, accidents and suicides, mental health-related factors, health care accessibility. Korean rural areas have been experiencing a rapid aging process and there are demographic differences between rural and urban populations. Thus, both of crude rates and age-adjusted rates were compared. Result: Although the degrees decreased after adjustment for age, health inequalities between areas still existed. The people who lived in rural areas suffer from higher mortality, morbidity and unhealthy behavior compared to people in urban areas. Especially, regional health inequalities for women were significant. Health care accessibility in rural areas was also lower and medical indirect costs for rural residents were higher than those of urban residents. Conclusion: To reduce health inequalities between geographical areas, political efforts to tackle health inequalities in the rural areas are required.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.51-59
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• 1992

Previous studies indicated that unmarried persons are subject to higher mortality than the married, and that the differentials are more marked for male than for females. There are two major approaches to explaining the marital status differentials in mortality ; selection function and protection function of marriage. Following protection fucntion, this study develops the new "instrumental / expressive sex-role" hypothesis in order to explain why marriage protects males more against death. The hypothesis expects that male's instrumental role and female's expressive role have direct effect as well as indirect effect through social integration on sex differential mortality by marital status. for the hypothesis testing, Korea and US vital statistics and census data are used to compute age-specific , age-adjusted mortality rates and their ratios for persons in different marital status. Major findings are as follows. 1)For both Korea and US being married is more advantageous to males than females, ad being widowed, divorced, and separated is more disadvantageous to males, while being never-married is more disadvantageous to females, 2) For Korea, the never married men and women have the highest mortality rates, 3) For US the never married women have the highest mortality rate, while the divorced, separated, and widowed men have the highest mortality rate. Fro both Korea and US data, selection function is rejected, but instrumental/expressive sex-role hypothesis succeeds in accounting for the sex and marital status differential in mortality.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.977-980
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• 2013

Background: Endometrial cancer is common in western women, and the rates are very high; however in India, the rates are as low as 4.3 per 100,000 (Delhi). Objective: To estimate the survival of endometrial cancer patients based on age, education, family history, tobacco habit, number of pregnancies, clinical extent of disease and treatment received. Materials and Methods: The present retrospective study was carried out at the Tata Memorial Hospital (TMH), Mumbai, India, between 1999-2002. 310 cases treated in TMH were considered as eligible entrants for the study. Five-year survival rates were estimated using actuarial and loss-adjusted (LAR) methods. Results: The proportions of patients dying above 50 years of age, non-residents and illiterates was higher than their counterparts. 54.8% of patients had some form of treatment before attending TMH. There were only 4.2% tobacco-chewers and only 6.1% had a family history of cancer. There were 25.8% who had 3-5 pregnancies (not living children) and 38.1% did not remember the pregnancy history. The 5-year overall survival rate was 92%. The five-year rates indicated better prognosis for those aged less than 50 years (97%), non-tobacco-chewers (94%), with no family history of cancer (93%), with localized disease (93%) and those treated with surgery either alone or as a combination treatment (95%). Conclusions: The present study showed that endometrial cancer patients with localized disease at diagnosis have a good outcome in India. A detailed study will help in understanding the prognostic indicators for survival especially with the newer treatment technologies now available.

• Clinical and Experimental Reproductive Medicine
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.31-41
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• 1999

To evaluate the effectiveness of intrauterine insemination (IUI) in the treatment of infertility, timed-intercourse and intrauterine insemination by husband in stimulated cycles with clomiphene citrate and gonadotropins were compared in a total of 105 cycles. Patients received 100mg of clomiphene citrate daily for 5 days starting on day 3 of the menstrual cycle followed by hMG or FSH. Doses of exogenous gonadotropins were adjusted by the follicular development and concentrations of serum estradiol $(E_2)$. More than 3 follicles reaching >16 mm were present in the ovary, 5,000 IU of hCG was administered intramusculary. Patients received a maximum of three intercourse or IUI cycles for the treatment. Severe male (<$10{\times}10^6$ motile sperm) or age factor (>39 y) patients were excluded in this study. Pregnancy was classified as clinical if a gestational sac or fetal cardiac activity was seen on ultrasound. The overall clinical pregnancy rates were 17.1% per cycle (18/105) and 21.2% per patient (18/85). The pregnancy rates (per cycle) were 17.5% (11/63) in intercourse and 16.7% (7/42) in IUI groups, respectively. IUI had no significant improvement in pregnancy rate compared with timed-intercourse. The multiple pregnancy rates were 11.1% (1 twin and 1 triplet). No patient developed ovarian hyperstimulation. Abortion rate was 28.6% (2/7) in IUI group only. The delivery and ongoing pregnancy rates were 15.2% per cycle (16/105) and 18.8% per patient (16/85). There were no differences in age, duration of infertility, follicle size and level of estradiol $(E_2)$ on the day of hCG injection in pregnant and non-pregnant groups. However, total doses of gonadotropins were higher in pregnant group than in non-pregnant group (p<0.01). Pregnancy rate was not affected by ovulatory status at the time of insemination. These results indicate that well timed-intercourse in stimulated cycles is as effective as IUI for infertile couples.

• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.14-31
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• 1986

This study shows trends and age-sex patterns of mortality in Korea, based on adjusted death registration data during 1956∼1980. Description on the data-the types of errors and their methods of adjustment-are presented elsewhere (Kim, 1986). Crude death rates have declined in 20 years to 7.0 in 1976∼1980, almost half the level of 13.0 in 1956∼1960. Mortality of females declined faster than males, especially at older ages. Substantial differences in provincial mortality are observed based on the expectation of life at birth. The difference between the highest and the lowest provinces is 9.2 years for males and 8.3 years for females during 1976∼1980. This study presents two interesting features of age-sex patterns of mortality in Korea. One feature is higher female mortality than males during childhood periods. However, infant mortality is higher for males than for females throughout the period, though the difference is much smaller than is expected from various model life tables. Another feature is the rapid rise in mortality for males after age 40. This pattern is found to be existed throughout the period 1956∼1980. Further studies are recommended to establish its causal linkage to traditional sex role (as main bread winner) and health behavior (smoking and drinking) of males and recent rapid industrialization in Korea.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.74-83
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• 2011

Objectives: This study aimed to identify and assess the factors related to the awareness, treatment, and control of hypertension based on jurisdictional areas of primary health care posts in a rural community of Korea. Methods: This study was performed on 4598 adults aged over 30 years in a rural community and we measured their blood pressure (BP) from October. 2007 to August. 2009. Hypertension is defined as a condition characterized by a systolic BP ${\geq}$ 140 mmHg, a diastolic BP ${\geq}$ 90 mmHg or reported treatment with antihypertensive medications. We analyzed the factors related with the prevalence, awareness, treatment and control of hypertension using chi-square test and multivariate logistic regression analysis. Results: The age-adjusted prevalence of hypertension was 34.7%. The age-adjusted rates of hypertension awareness, treatment and control were 50.6%, 93.9% and 64.1%, respectively. Awareness of hypertension was related with increasing age. Higher awareness was found among men who were felt more stress, were obese and had hypercholesterolemia, and among women who were regulary taking medicine for hypertension, were obese and had diabetes mellitus. In women, the hypertension treatment was related a Medical aid and education for hypertension management. Controlled hypertension was more common among men who were educated about the management of hypertension and among women who had hypercholesterolemia. Conclusions: The awareness of hypertension was low and the control of hypertension was high compared with the nationwide data (KNHANES 2005). The results suggest that understanding the characteristics of hypertension in a community is important to perform a community based hypertension control program.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.164-172
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• 2022

Background: The purpose of this study was to the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak on emergency departments (EDs) in patients under the age of 18 years with respiratory disease. Also, we analyzed similarities and differences in patients including revisit before and after the COVID-19 outbreak. Methods: This study population was respiratory patients under the age of 18 years who visited all 403 EDs in Korea between January 1st, 2019 and December 31st, 2020, using the National Emergency Department Information System Database. The primary outcome was the number of respiratory patients according to age, sex, the type of EDs, season, Korean Triage and Acuity Scale (KTAS) levels, the result of ED, and length of stay. The secondary outcome was the number of revisit respiratory patients within 72 hours. We calculated the risk-adjusted revisit rates according to the KTAS level using a multiple logistic regression model. Results: The number of ED visits decreased from 274,526 in 2019 to 79,007 in 2020; this number was 71.2% lower than that before COVID-19. In spring 2020, this number was 90.1% lower than during the same period in 2019. For the revisit rate in the study population, the adjusted odds ratio (95% confidence interval) was 1.22 (1.05-1.41) in 2019 and 1.39 (1.07-1.81) in 2020. Conclusion: Implementing appropriate emergency care policies in severe respiratory patients would have contributed to improving the safety of reducing in revisit rate.

• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.104-142
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• 1989

IndustrialiBation and urbanisation have been known to increase divorce rates through the enhancement of emotional function of flmily, the weakness of extendedfamilial network, the separation of public and private spheres, increase of educationallevel for women, increase of labor participation rate for women, and the pursuit ofegalitarian relationship for the couple. Divorce rates by sex, age, province andeducation in Korea for the period 1970 ~ 1995 were examined using the data ofmarriage and divorce registration and population census. Crude divorce rates, sex-age-specific divorce rates and sex-age-adjusted divorce rates were calculated for thetotal population and the married population respectively, and the characteristics ofvarious divorce indicators were discussed. During 1970~1995, divorce rates increasedthree times, and divorce rate in 1995 was 3.5 per 1,000 married persons. Divorcerate was highest for those under 25 years old, and it was increasing rapidly fDr allages, with the most rapid increase fDr the middle-aged. The relative divorce increaserate was highest fDr females than males. Divorce rates were highest for Seoul, Pusan,Inchon, Taejon, Kyonggi, and Jeju, and for aged 25 ~ 34 years of Chonbuk andKangwon. Divorce rate was highest fDr the male elementary-school graduates andlowest for the male college graduates, it was highest for the female high-schoolgraduates and lowest for the female uneducated.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.12 no.7
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• pp.3130-3137
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• 2011

The present study was to elucidate such a relationship by comparing the coronary risk factors with and without fatty liver adjusted for age and/or BMI. Study subjects were 665 women of 30 years and over, who underwent health package check-up at the health promotion center of an university hospital from July, 2009 to June, 2010. As a results, the prevalence rates of fatty liver of study subjects were 11.6%, and the rates were significantly higher in older age group, in the group of higher level of BMI. The group of subjects with fatty liver had significantly lower mean HDL-cholesterol and higher levels of body fat rate, TG, TC, LDL-cholesterol, FBS and ALT, then those parameters in subjects without fatty liver, even after adjustment for age and/or BMI. In age and BMI adjusted logistic regressions, The odds ratio of fatty liver was increased significantly as there is an increase in the abnormal group with TG, TC, LDL-C and ALT.