• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.65-82
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• 2001

The purpose of this study is to find out how well the middle school students are practicing the health promotion behaviors and the factors relating their health promotion behavior. Questionnaire survey on 922 middle school students attending 6 middle schools (three middle schools for each sex) located in Taegu City from the 7th through 19th of Feb. 2000 were conducted. The following were as follows; 1. The perceived health status is higher in male students than in female students(p〈0.01). And the ratio of the students' feeling that they are healthy becomes also high in proportion to their economic status, and their mothers' educational level, and their parents' interest in health(p〈0.01). The perceived importance of health is high in proportion to the students' economic status, and their parent's interest in health. 2. In case of the Health Locus of Control in Personality, the students with both parents have higher trend of inner control than the students with single mother or single father. The perceived self efficacy is significantly higher in male students than in female students(p〈0.01). And it becomes significantly high in-proportion to the students' economic status and their parents' educational level and interest in health(p〈0.01). It is also higher in the students who had no diseases. 3. In case of the perceived benefit of the health promotion behavior, the ratio of the students responding that it is high is higher in male students than in female students(p〈0.01). It also becomes high in proportion to the students' economic status, and their parent's educational level and interest in health(p〈0.01). The barriers of the health promotion behavior was found to have no variables that are related to itself. 4. According to the data from Multiple Regression of Analysis which has the health promotion behavior practice as a subordinate variable, in male students' case the degree of health promotion behavior practice becomes high in proportion to their parents' interest in health, and the perceived health status. Their degree of health promotion behavior practice is also in proportion to their perceived self efficacy and the perceived benefit of the health promotion behavior practice. But in case of the barriers of the health promotion behavior practice, the result is the opposite. As to the female students, their health behavior practice becomes high in proportion to their parents' interest in health. It also becomes high in proportion to the perceived health status, the understanding of the importance of the health, the perceived self efficacy and the perceived benefit of the health promotion behavior. But in case of the barriers of the health promotion behavior, it was the same as the male students' case.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.14
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• pp.6055-6059
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• 2015

Background: Medication policy development in Thailand is continually promoting rational drug use. Letrozole, an endocrine therapy drug, is usually prescribed for post-menopausal status early and advanced stage breast cancer. After Ministry of Public Health announced Letrozole as compulsory licensed drug in 2009, more breast cancer patients can access to this drug at low cost especially those within universal coverage schemes. To ensure that Letrozole is rationally prescribed, the drug utilization study was conducted. Objectives: The aim of this study was to describe the appropriate use of Letrozole in breast cancer and the relationship between appropriate use and health benefit schemes. Materials and Methods: A retrospective study to evaluate use of Letrozole in breast cancer patients was performed for six months between January - June 2010 in seven regional cancer hospitals, Thailand. All prescriptions of Letrozole were identified from pharmacy dispensing databases and prescription papers. A medical record review was also performed to evaluate appropriate use referring to the drug use evaluation criteria. The approved criterion of this study was referred from the guideline of Thai National Formulary version 2010. Results: There were 681 prescriptions of Letrozole for 254 breast cancer patients with an average age of $58.6{\pm}10.0years$. The patients in universal coverage scheme (UCS), civil servant medication benefit scheme (CSMBS) and social security scheme (SSS) were 77.7%, 18.5% and 8.7% respectively. 10.6% were prescribed Letrozole for the first time. Letrozole were prescribed by oncologists (82.8%). The average number of tablets per prescription was $58{\pm}10$. Calcium supplements were prescribed concomitant with Letrozole for 19.4%. To assess drug use evaluation criteria, 45 prescriptions were excluded because of uncompleted clinical data, 636 prescriptions were evaluated. The study showed 86 prescriptions (13.5%) with inappropriate use including 6 (0.9%) not prescribed for estrogen receptor (ER) and/or progesterone receptor (PR) positive, 31 (4.9%) not prescribed for post-menopausal and 49 (7.7%) not prescribed for an appropriate duration. Appropriate use percentages in different health benefit schemes were similar, 85.7% of CSMBS, 86.4% of SSS and 86.7% of UCS. The relationship between health benefit scheme and appropriate use of Letrozole was not significantly different, ${\chi}^2$ (2, N = 636) = 0.081, p > 0.05. Conclusions: The study showed inappropriate use in breast cancer patients because of non-compliance with duration, menopausal status and hormone receptor requirements. To prescribe appropriate indication did not referred to the appropriate practice along the treatment. Drug use evaluation proved very useful for detecting the sign of inappropriate use and allows immediate feedback to the stakeholder for developing medication policy in the future. Importantly, there was no significantly difference in appropriate use of Letrozole across health benefit schemes.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.13
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• pp.5133-5136
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• 2014

Objective: To use health economics methodology to assess the screening program on gastric cancer in Zhuanghe, China, so as to provide the basis for health decision on expanding the program of early detection and treatment. Materials and Methods: The expense of an early detection and treatment program for gastric cancer in patients found by screening, and also costs of traditional treatment in a hospital of Zhuanghe were assessed. Three major techniques of medical economics, namely cost-effective analysis (CEA), cost-benefit analysis (CBA) and cost-utility analysis (CUA), were used to assess the screening program. Results: Results from CEA showed that investing every 25, 235 Yuan on screening program in Zhuanghe area, one gastric cancer patient could be saved. Data from CUA showed that it was cost 1, 370 Yuan per QALY saved. Results from CBA showed that: the total cost was 1,945,206 Yuan with a benefit as 8,669,709 Yuan and an CBR of 4.46. Conclusions: The early detection and treatment program of gastric cancer appears economic and society-beneficial. We suggest that it should be carry out in more high risk areas for gastric cancer.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.43
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• pp.270-298
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• 2000

Government provides financial support to the 74 Home help service centers, 36 Day care service centers, and 18 Short stay service centers for the elderly. The number of service centers that receive financial support from the government is far less to meet the potential demand for the community care services. This paper applies cost-benefit analysis to evaluate the net social benefit of the services provided by the 3 types of the community care service centers sponsored by the government to justify the expansion of the government support. The benefit is calculated as community care services are provided privately in the market without financial support from the government. The potential market price is regarded as the benefit or value provided to the elderly. The price levels that potential users are willing to pay for these services are surveyed in the Census for the Elderly by the KIHASA, 1998. The market prices for the community services are generated by equating limited amount of service supply, as in number of users in one year in 3 types of community care service centers, and potential demand for the services. Market prices are multiplied to the number of users of 3 types of community centers to get the total benefit. Total operating cost of the community care service centers is regarded as cost. According to the cost-benefit analysis, Home-help service centers generated net social benefit of 137 billion Won, Day Care service centers generated 15 billion Won, and Short stay service centers generated 6 billion Won. Significant amount of net social benefit indicates that government should increase level of financial support to these service centers.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.97-106
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• 2010

Environmental issues resulting from climate change and energy crises have become global issues, and cycling has gained greater popularity for sustainable transportation. Though many cities are trying to build bicycle roads, it is not easy to implement bicycle roads because there is little available space for bicycle facilities. Therefore, road diets have become more popular in Korea. However, there has been no intensive research to date of their impacts. The purpose of this research is to evaluate the effects of road diets and construction of bike lanes. Every benefit, including energy benefit, environmental benefit, and health benefit is considered, while only time savings benefit has been considered in previous studies. The benefit analysis for the Seoul metropolitan area as a case study shows that road diets have a (1) time saving benefit for only five percent of the mode share and (2) enough total benefit even if bicycle mode share is less than two percent.

• 대한예방의학회:학술대회논문집
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• 1993.10a
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• pp.157-158
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• 1993

• Quality Improvement in Health Care
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.244-261
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• 2000

Background : In order to cope with changes in the management environment at hospitals, increased interests are drawn in patient foodservice system on Continuous Quality Improvement Activity as the method of approaching a quality food service and effective management. Thus, as a part of this activity, this study was conducted to evaluate job flow improvement that was already performed and the results of that process at the dietetic department of a university hospital, focusing on improving management. Method : On February 15 of 1998. the dietetic department formed a job flow-improvement to decide on the priority of job flow improvement, and prepared specific action strategies and schedule of the priority: after a 5 month process period, job improvement achieved on June 15. 1998. Also, economic achievement of the task was evaluated through labor productivity analysis and cost-benefit analysis. Results : The patient food service system which was managed decentralized at the present hospital was centralized, some steps of the food service process were integrated, and quality of patient food was improved. Also, as a solution of the problems expected when conducting job flow improvement was made on food service equipments and utensils. The result of evaluating the job flow improvement that labor productivity improved by 18.2% compared to before the improvement and the result of the analysis of cost-benefit showed that Benefit-Cost (B/C) ratio was 2.22. showing financial merit on the investment. Conclusions : Continuous Quality Improvement Activity needs to be initiated and conducted in the future in various areas of hospital foodservice system in order to actively adopt to ever changing hospital management environment. In order to achieve this goal, many researches and more efforts need to be put in by people in charge of hospital food service management, and interests and support are needed from hospital policy makers.

• Journal of Environmental Policy
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.81-113
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• 2009

This study conducted a regulatory impact analysis regarding the introduction of the Korean version of REACH(Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals). The direct cost of the Korean REACH is estimated at a total of 101 billion Korean won over the 11 year period. The cost includes pre-registration, testing, registration, Chemical Safety Assessment(CSA) and Chemical Safety Report(CSR), evaluation, and the authorization costs of 15,223 chemical substances produced and imported more than 1 ton per year in Korea in 2006. With regard to the benefit, the only public health benefit is included in the estimation. Based on the available foreign and domestic data, this study estimated that the economic values of public health benefits are in the range of 33.2~138.6 billion Korean won if only the savings of the National Health Expenditures are considered and it reaches 203.9~1,640.3 billion Korean won if the willingness to pay(WTP) for disease prevention is included. This study proved that the Korean REACH passed the cost/benefit criteria. The benefit-cost ratio of the Korean REACH, however, is estimated to be lower than its EU counterpart. Thus it is suggested that a rigorous study to reduce the costs to industry be required before the Korean government introduces the Korean REACH.

• YAKHAK HOEJI
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• v.51 no.3
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• pp.186-193
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• 2007

This study was performed to analyse the economic value of abciximab which is used in PCI to prevent high-risk patients with ischemic complications. The effectiveness of abciximab was extracted from published clinical trials by search-ing CCIS, and the direct medical costs relevant to using abciximab were estimated from the NHI claims database. The results in terms of cost per life-year gained (LYG) and cost per QALY gained showed that abciximab was cost-effective enough to deserve its cost. Social net benefit resulting from abciximab in PCI was estimated to be 60-70 billion Won per year.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.49 no.4
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• pp.183-196
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• 2016

Objectives: There is no systematic review on economic evaluations of telemedicine in Japan, despite over 1000 trials implemented. Our systematic review aims to examine whether Japan's telemedicine is cost-saving or cost-effective, examine the methodological rigorousness of the economic evaluations, and discuss future studies needed to improve telemedicine's financial sustainability. Methods: We searched five databases, including two Japanese databases, to find peer-reviewed articles published between January 1, 2000 and December 31, 2014 in English and Japanese that performed economic evaluations of Japan's telemedicine programs. The methodological rigorousness of the economic analyses was assessed with a well-established checklist. We calculated the benefit-to-cost ratio (BCR) when a reviewed study reported related data but did not report the BCR. All cost values were adjusted to 2014 US dollars. Results: Among the 17 articles identified, six studies reported on settings connecting physicians for specialist consultations, and eleven studies on settings connecting healthcare providers and patients at home. There are three cost-benefit analyses and three cost-minimization analyses. The remaining studies measured the benefit of telemedicine only, using medical expenditure saved or users' willingness-to-pay. There was substantial diversity in the methodological rigorousness. Studies on teledermatology and teleradiology indicated a favorable level of economic efficiency. Studies on telehomecare gave mixed results. One cost-benefit analysis on telehomecare indicated a low economic efficiency, partly due to public subsidy rules, e.g., a too short budget period. Conclusions: Overall, telemedicine programs in Japan were indicated to have a favorable level of economic efficiency. However, the scarcity of the economic literature indicates the need for further rigorous economic evaluation studies.