• 한국노년학
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.569-592
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• 2018

This study purported to investigate the current state of human rights of older adults residing in rural areas of Korea. The study utilized, as an analytic framework, 4 priority directions (1. "older persons and development", 2. "rural area development", 3. "advancing health and well-being into old age", and 4. "ensuring enabling and supportive environments") with 13 task actions recommended by Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing (MIPAA). Furthermore, the study examined gender differences in all items included in the analytic framework. Data was collected by the face-to-face survey on 800 subjects aged 65 and over. Statistical analyses were conducted using STATA 13.0 program. The main results were summarized in order of 4 priority directions as follows. First, average working hours per day were 6.2, and men reportedly participated in economic activities and needed job training more than women, while women participated in lifelong education programs more than men. Awareness of fire and disaster prevention facilities was low in both genders. Second, accessibility to the support center for the elderly living alone as well as protective services for the vulnerable elderly was found to be low. IT-based services and networking were used more by men than women, and specifically, IT-based financial transactions and welfare services were least used. Third, medical check-ups and vaccinations were well received, while consistent treatments for chronic illnesses and long-term care services were relatively less given. In addition, accessibility to mental health service centers was considerably low. Fourth, although old house structures and the lack of convenience facilities were found to be circumstantial risk factors for these elders, experiences of receiving housing support services were scarce. The elderly were found to rely more on informal care, and concerns for their care were higher in women than men. Plus, accessibility to elderly abuse services was markedly low. Based on these results, discussed were implications for implementing policies and practical interventions to raise the levels of the human rights for this population.

• Women's Health Nursing
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.53-67
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• 1996

A total health state evaluation of Korean female elderlies was made by using the questionary scheme measuring the physical, mental and social functions of the elderlies, in order to investigate the critical factors for the health maintenance of female elderlies and to develop their preventive nursing program. A total of 280 subjects over 65 years old living in Seoul and the suburban area were selected and interviewed during the period of September and October in 1995. The materials collected were analyzed statistically by using SAS data processing program, and the results and recommendations are summarized as follows. 1. The physical health state of Korean elderly women was evaluated to be satisfactory by showing an average score of 3.722 in 5.0 full-score scale. But this score was lower than those evaluated for the elderlies combined both sexes(4.054). The mental health state of the subjects was also evaluated as high scoring 3.484, possibly due to the fact that 78% of the subjects lived together with their children's family. On the other hand, the social health state of the subjects was relatively low scoring 2.585, mainly due to that 80% of them was widows which was resulted by the 6-7 years longer life-expectancy of Korean women. 2. A significant differences in the physical health state scores between different age groups was observed, indicating the rapid ageing process occurring in this age group. The family structure was appeared to be an important factor influencing the physical health state of the female elderlies ; the physical health score of the women with her husband only was higher than that of those living with children's families, and the lowest score was obtained from those living alone. 3. The age was the most important factor determining the mental health state of the subjects, while the religion, educational status, marriage state and family structure did not significantly influenced the mental health state of the aged women. 4. The social health state of the subject was deeply influenced by the marriage state and family structure, showing significantly lower scores with widowers compared to the married couples. Those living with their married spouse only obtained the highest social health score, while those living along showed the lowest score. The parent and grandparentship of those living with their children and the religion, especially Catholic and Protestant, had positive influence on the social health state of the aged women. 5. The mental health state of aged women showed significant correlation with the factors determining the physical health, except for digestive system related ability and sexual ability and the highest extra home ability. 6. The mental health state of aged women showed significant correlation with the factors determining social health, especially with the parent and grandparentship and the family relative's role. From these results, the following recommendations are made. 1. Since the physical, mental and social health states of aged people are deeply influenced by the sex and the average values of the both sex can create misleading figures, the health evaluation of the elderlies should be made separately by sex. 2. Since the health state of aged women is highly influenced by their family structure, the spouse's role and living with married couple only should be emphasized in respect of preventive health care. 3. The social activity programs and grandparentship teaching programs should be prepared in the nursing care program for aged people.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.73-82
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• 1985

This study was conducted to evaluate nutritional status with the analysis of the factors which might influence on the prevalent condition of nutrients-intake. 373 persons who are above 60 years old in Chung-Gu, Seoul were surveyed from March 15 to March 30 in 1985. Results were as follows ; 1. General Characteristics 1) Male respondents among the entire respondents comprised 54.3% and female respondents comprised 45.7%. As for age, male and female respondents comprised 55.0% and 37.2% respectively. 2) As for the educational level of the respondents, illiteracy was 49.9% which was the highest. and those who graduated elementary school was 28.1% which was the second highest. And as for the comparison of the education of the male and female respondents, the educational level of male respondents was much higher than that of female respondents. 3) As for the final occupation of the respondents, those who were engaged in commerce comprised 30.8% which was the highest rate, and who were engaged in agriculture comprised 20.1% which was the second highest rate. And those who were engaged in labor comprised 12.3%. 2. The State of Nutrients-intake The energy of the male respondents was 61.4% of RDA and the protein was nothing but 66.8% of RDA. Except vitamin A, vitamin $B_1$ and niacin, calcium, iron, vitamin $B_2$, vitamin C were lower than RDA (the range: $67.5%{\sim}97.3%$). The energy of the female respondents was 70.0% of RDA and the protein was 58.8% which were lower than RDA. Except vitamin A and vitamin $B_1$, calcium, iron, vitamin $B_2$ vitamin C, niacin were lower than RDA (the range: $68.2%{\sim}98.9%$). 3. The various factors related to nutrients-intake 1) The composition of family and the food environment those who were living with their spouses comprised 44.8% which was the highest rate, and those who were living with their son's family comprised 33.5% which was the second highest rate and those who were living with their doughter's family comprised only 4.6%. Those who were living alone comprised 16.4%. The correlation with nutrient intake didn't show a clear relation. 2) Socio-economic state Those who said that they lacked in living expense comprised 32.7% and those who said that they lacked in pocket-money comprised 23.9%, The female respondents outnumbered the male respondents in lacking living expense or pocket-money. In the correlation with socio-economic, there was no striking relation with education level. However, it was shown that little relation in energy, fat in male and also fat and iron in female. The living expense and the satisfaction in pocket-money had also little relation with energy fat and vitamin C in male. 3) Nutrition knowledge and food habit (a) The state of nutrition knowledge and food habit In nutrition knowledge, those who scored less than 60 points were 32.9%, and those who scored more than 90 points were 21.0%. In food habit, those who scored less than 60 points were 26.5% and those who scored more than 80 points were 45%. (b) The corelation with nutrition knowledge and food habit In case of female respondents, nutrition knowledge had a little relation with the intake of cabohydrate, iron, and vitamin C. And we couldn't see a distinct phenomenon in food habit.

• Korean Journal of Cognitive Science
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.1-16
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• 2018

In this study, we investigated age differences of preference and trust ratings when the appearance of an artificial intelligent speaker resembles a human face. The appearance of the artificial intelligent speaker was presented in seven levels from robot face to human face. In addition, face stimuli were divided into gender (male and female) and age (20s / 60s). Participants evaluated the reliability and likability of each face stimulus on a 7-point scale. The results show that younger adults tend to prefer the face that was halfway between the robot and the human face, while older adults evaluated that the perceived reliability and likability were higher when the stimuli resembled the human face. When asked to choose the most preferred of the four face categories, all participants chose a younger face. However, with additional conditions including emoticon face and empty condition, older adults still preferred human face, while younger adults preferred emoticon face and empty condition. Taken together, older adults are more receptive to human faces than robotic faces in the context of artificial intelligence speakers. Because artificial intelligent speakers can play an important role in the elderly living alone, the present study will be a good reference in the design and development of artificial intelligent speakers for the elderly users.

• Journal of the Korean Regional Science Association
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.61-73
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• 2019

Urban development and densification have led to the Urban Heat Island Effect, in which the temperature of urban space is higher than the surrounding areas, and the intensity is increasing with climate change. In addition, when the city's air temperature rises in summer, low-income, elderly population, and socially vulnerable people who have health problems lack the ability to cope with the elevated heat environment. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the urban heat island area of Seoul through Hotspot analysis, which is a spatial statistics technique, and explored physical environments, demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of urban heat island effect areas using logistic regression models. This study performed urban heat island hotspot analysis using the average air temperatures of the 423 administrative dongs in Seoul. Analysis results identified that the urban heat islands were concentrated in Jung-gu, Jongno-gu, Yongsan-gu, and Yeongdeungpo-gu. Logistic regression analysis results indicated that urban heat island areas of Seoul were affected by residential floor area ratio, commercial facility floor area ratio, overall floor area ratio, impervious surface ratio, and normalized difference vegetation index(NDVI). In addition, as a result of analyzing the vulnerable area of thermal environment considering the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of the heat island area, urban heat island areas of Seoul were significantly associated with the proportion of low-income elderly living alone. The result of this study provided useful insights for urban thermal environmental design and policy development that could improve the thermal environment for the socially disadvantaged urban population.

• Journal of Internet Computing and Services
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.57-70
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• 2007

This paper is to construct a healthcare database using information obtained from healthcare home environments, and use this one for healthcare home services, Especially, our researching focus in this paper is how to design healthcare database scheme and how to use this constructed database on the Framework for Supporting Healthcare Integrated Service(FSHIS) we developed previously. Healthcare information is designed to database schemes in accordance to the specific save types of the data collected from various typed-sensors. The healthcare database constructed by using this information for the purpose of healthcare home services is divided into the base information with real schemes and the context based information with view schemes. Firstly, the base information includes low data obtained from physical sensors relevant to locations, healths, environments, and the personnel healthy profiles. The other is the context based information that is produced and fused by using the based information. This context based information might be got via various view schemes according to healthcare application services. Finally, for verifying the practical use of healthcare database constructed in this paper, Via interconnecting this database to our FSHIS, we show an example of healthcare home monitoring service using information (basic and context based information), emergency call, home appliance control, and so on needed from living activity area for elderly living alone.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.128-136
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• 2011

This study was carried out to investigate the factors of food service satisfaction of the elderly in Busan. The survey was conducted from September 1 to October 15, 2009 by questionnaires and data analyzed by SPSS program. Fifty point nine percent of the subjects lived alone and the source of living expenses of 70.5% of the subjects was subsidy from government. The most important reason for the elderly to participate in meal service was 'economic difficulty' and 'to meet friend'. The subjects had various chronic degenerative diseases, such as arthritis, hypertension, diabetes, osteoporosis and cardiac disease. Sixty-six point eight percent of the subjects needed diet therapy for their diseases, but 87.1% of them don't want to pay the extra fee. Thirty six point five percent of the subjects attained information about lunch program because it was 'close to home' but 20.7% was 'from public officials'. The reasons for the use of the meal service were 'economic difficulty' (40.0%), 'to meet friends' (22.6%), and 'bother to prepare meal' (16.50%). The services provided by welfare center were health care, physical exam and haircut. The score given by the subjects on the satisfaction of meal service was 3.84 on the 5-point maximum scale. Higher satisfaction on kindness of staff, satisfaction of social support and awareness of support resulted in higher satisfaction of food service. It would be effective to provide food service models that meet specific needs of the elderly according to social welfare service and social community activities.

• Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.102-110
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• 1999

Objectives : The alcohol dependence in elderly people has been prevalent because of increase in geriatric population. However, it is difficult to find out alcohol dependence in the aged, because they have less specific clinical features as compared with adult alcoholics. The aims of this study were to screen alcohol dependence among elderly Koreans and to know the clinical characteristics of Korean delerly alcoholics. Methods : The questionnaires translated into Korean such as Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test(MAST-K), the Brief MAST and the MAST-Geriatirc Version (MAST-KG) were used to screen alcohol dependence in the elderly alcoholic inpatients aged over 60(N=43), adult alcoholic inpatients within 20-59 Yrs of age(N=60), which were compared with age matched normal healthy aged(N=18) or adult controls(N=45). The demographic data such as sex, age, education, occupation, socioeconomic status, marital status, numbers of children, dwelling and religion as well as alcohol history such as duration of alcohol drinking, onset age, family history, impulsivity, somatic illness and motivation were also obtained to identify characteristic features of Korean aged alcoholics by structured interviews. Results : 1) The aged alcoholics had the charateristic features of more in males, lower age, low education levels, more in blue-collar workers, lower socioeconomic class, more in single, few babies, more living alone, having no religion without statistical significance. 2) The onset age of alcohol dependence was significantly higher in the aged alcoholics($45.3{\pm}13.6Yrs$) than in the adult alcoholics($27.7{\pm}8.7Yrs$)(p<0.0001). The duration of problematic alcohol drinking was significantly longer in the aged alcoholics($22.0{\pm}15.1Yrs$) than in adult alcoholics($14.2{\pm}8.4Yrs$)(p<0.01). Otherwise, there were no significant difference between aged and adult alcoholics in the family history, imulsivity, somatic illness and motivation. 3) The mean score of the MAST-K was significantly higher in the aged alcoholics($20.6{\pm}5.4$) than in the normal aged($6.7{\pm}4.4$)(p<0.0001), which was significantly lower than in the adult alcoholics($26.2{\pm}8.0$) and in normal adult controls($9.5{\pm}3.2$)(p<0.05). The mean score of the Brief MAST was significantly lower in the aged alcoholics($9.3{\pm}3.5$) than in the adult alcoholics($14.5{\pm}6.6$)(p<0.0001). The mean score of the MAST-KG was significantly higher in the aged alcoholics($10.6{\pm}3.5$) than in the normal aged($4.8{\pm}4.3$)(p<0.0001). The former was significantly lower than in the adult alcoholics($12.9{\pm}4.3$)(p<0.005), and the mean score was $4.5{\pm}2.8$ in normal adult controls. 4) The items which showed statistically significant differences between aged alcoholics and normal aged controls could be found in 10 items of the MAST-K(items 2, 3, 4, 5, 11, 14, 17, 21, 22 and 23), 2 items of the Brief MAST(items 2 and 9), and 7 items of the MAST-KG(items 6, 13, 18, 19, 22, 23 and 24)(p<0.01). Conclusions : The scores of the MAST-K, the Brief MAST and the MAST-KG were significantly lower in the aged alcoholics than those in the adult alcoholics (p<0.05). The statistically significant differences between aged alcoholics and normal aged controls could be found in 10 items of the MAST-K, 2 items of the Brief MAST and 7 items of the MAST-KG. Therefore, a briefer rating scales around 10 items are needed to screen alcohol dependence among Korean elderly people.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.151-164
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• 2010

Objective:Korea has 3,170 islands with about 188,000 inhabitants. These inhabitants' needs for health services might go unmet because of geographic isolation, slimmer availability of health services, and higher proportion of the elderly compared with the mainland population. Unmet health service needs might result in serious health problems for these island residents. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate their unmet health service needs and related factors from population of Nowha island. Methods: The survey was conducted from July 30 to August 1 by trained interviewers. Target population were residents in Nohwa island and the sampling method was incomplete quota sampling. General characteristics, socioeconomic status, utilization of health service, and unmet medical service needs were investigated. First univariate and then multivariate logistic analyses were done for the statistical analysis. Results: 324 residents were surveyed and the proportion of unmet health services needs was 26.5%. People living alone and of female sex had increased health services needs based on univariable analysis. From the multivariate analysis, those living alone increased the health services needs. Self-determined low socioeconomic status and medical aid increased the proportion of unmet medical needs, but these were not statistically significant. Conclusion:In Nowha island, those who are elder, and of lower socioeconomic status had much higher unmet medical needs. The results suggest the need for more social support by qualified health services to solve this unmet medical needs problem.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.136-160
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• 2005

Before introducing the national long-term care insurance in 2008, the want for long term care service has to be estimated and analysed. This study estimates the demand and analyses what determines the want of long term care service. This study investigated data of 3f6 elderlies, that was collected by age stratified random sampling. The elderies resided in Onyang 4 - dong (urban area) and Dogo-myun (rural area) In the city of Asan. The researchers visited the elderlies and their care giver, and assessed their demand for the long term care service and examined physical, mental, socio-economic status by the assessment tools for Korean Long-Term Care System. $64\%$ of the those who are entitled to be served refuse the long term care service. $26.7\%$ of them wants for home care service and $7.9\%$ want facility care service. It is estimated that the want of home care service are three or four times as much as that of facility care service. The demand for long term care service is 5.155 times higher for those who live in rural area (p=0.000), 3.040 times higher for those who do not have spouse(p=0.057), and 3.356 times higher for the people who is in medicaid than medical insurance(p=0.029). However, income(p=0.782), means(p=0.614), living alone(p=0.223), number of family to live with (p=0.341) and age of the elderly(p=0.420) are not related with the demand of long term care service. The assessment tools for Korean Long-Term Care System for need evaluation of the long term care service can reflect the demand well.(p=0.024) If medical care will cover $80\%$ of total cost, the willingness to pay of the out of pocket money of the people with medical insurance is 67,400 Korean Won(66.77 US$) for the home care service and 182,500 Korean Won(180.78 US$) for the facility care service. There is possibility that long term care demand is still small after Introducing the long term care Insurance due to the care given by family members. When developing service delivery system of long term care insurance, rural area has to be given more consideration than urban area because of the higher demand. The people who do not have spouse or are in medicaid have to be given special consideration as well.