• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.5-34
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• 2011

There have been increasing incidents of natural and social disasters that claimed many lives and caused financial calamities worldwide, which call for an attention to mental health issues affecting disaster victims. This study reviewed the findings of the empirical research on the effects of disaster on the victims, the prevalence and determinants of the mental health problems. The disaster tends to disproportionately affect the socio-economically disadvantaged population and their mental health problems and recovery seemed to be heavily influenced by post-disaster experiences such as restoration of physical environment, prospect of economic recovery and resumption of normalcy in their lives, opportunities for participation in decision-making that affect their lives. Such findings suggest that the disaster mental health should shift from its traditional approach that focuses on short-term clinical interventions to alleviate acute mental distress for the victims to a public health approach that involve medical, social and economic interventions as well as community empowerment to prevent chronicity of the mental health problems and to improve the general quality of life of the individuals and the community adversely affected by the disaster. Implications for the social work research, policy making, education and practice were discussed.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.39 no.6
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• pp.933-943
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• 2019

The purpose of this study is to identify determinants for preferred funeral methods depending on socio-economic characteristics. In South Korea, the Act on Funeral Services, Etc. categorizes funeral methods into burial, inurnment, and natural burial. This study empirically analyzes how and what socio-economic characteristics affect choices among these three categories. Data is collected from Social Survey 2017 and funeral facilities in the country. The data to be analyzed is developed in terms of a hierarchy which puts the burial and cremation methods in an upper class and the inurnment and natural burial methods in a lower class. Based on this data, a nested logit model is employed to conduct empirical analysis. The analysis indicates that those characteristics that have a statistically significant influence on preferred methods include gender, age, householder, marriage, satisfaction with life, class awareness, monthly income, housing type, housing tenure type, and living in city area. Each variable's modulus of calculated direct and cross elasticity need to be used to analyze the outcome of a nested logit model. In this study, the modulus of direct and cross elasticity are determined for the significant variables. The calculated direct elasticity is applied to analyze the likelihood of choosing each funeral method when there are changes in the significant variables. When a particular method has been selected, on the other hand, the cross elasticity is utilized to analyze changes to the likelihood of choosing the other methods. One of the most notable results is related to natural burial. In order to meet the demand for natural burial, it is necessary to provide more burial sites and raise awareness of natural burial. This will facilitate the efficient use of national territorial space.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.229-255
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• 2017

This study empirically estimates the impacts of climate change on forest composition in Korea using a fractional data regression model, and forecasts the change in forest composition in the 2040s and 2090s based on the IPCC climate change scenarios. Unlike the forest science studies that incorporate mostly only ecological variables as the determinants of forest composition, we take into account regional level socio-economic and forest management variables as well. Our estimation results found that not only environmental factors but also socio-economic and forest management related factors strongly affect the composition of Korean forest. Based on the estimation results and IPCC scenarios on climate change, we predict that the share of currently dominant coniferous forest will decline in the future under all scenarios. About 10% of total forest area is likely to be converted from coniferous forest into broadleaved forest until 2090s under the scenario RCP 8.5. It is also predicted that there will be a substantial regional variation in the effects of climate change on forest composition, and the coniferous forests in the inland regions will decline more dramatically.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.277-288
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• 2015

This study aims to identify determinants affecting on geographic variations in the prevalence of arthritis in Korean women using data mining. Data from Korean Community Health Survey 2012 with 249 small districts were analyzed. Socio-demographic, health behavior and status, and morbidity status measures were analyzed using conventional regression model and convergence analysis method such as decision tree for convergence analysis. Rate of workers in agriculture, forestry, and fishing, salaried workers, persons higher than high school graduates, non-treatment of needing care, non-treatment of care because of economic reason, obesity, heavy drunkers, complaining persons of chewing difficulty, persons with experiencing depression, persons with perceiving stress, and persons with diagnosing hypertension and angina pectoris were variation determinants of prevalence of arthritis in 249 small districts and these districts were classified 10 area groups by decision tree model. Our finding suggest that the approach based characteristics by small area groups rather than national wide or individual level would be effective to reduce in variations of prevalence of arthritis.

• 한국사회정책
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.257-285
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• 2016

The purpose of this paper is to examine the determinants of public attitudes toward welfare spending in relation with the perception of welfare level. Data from the national survey of 'the SSK Good Government Research Unit' are used to perform a logistic regression analysis of the association between welfare attitudes and government perceptions, political orientations, and socio-economic backgrounds. The most prominent finding is that the determinants of welfare attitudes differ markedly between the two different groups of welfare perception. The empirical results say that persons living in a corrupt government tend to prefer welfare spendings despite having low level of welfare, and persons living in a unjust government tend to prefer welfare expansion because welfare level must be low. Persons living in a government of great capacity tend to have positive attitudes to welfare spending despite having a high level of welfare, whereas persons living in a government of less capacity tend to have negative attitudes to welfare expansion because the level of welfare is too high beyond government capacity. This distinction between the two perceptions of welfare level provides a systemic understanding of public attitudes toward welfare spending.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.89-95
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• 2013

Objectives: Little is yet known about the determinants of bone mineral density (BMD) in young adults. Thus, in this study, we aimed to determine the factors that have an impact on BMD in young men. Methods: Questionnaires were sent out to 111 male medical students. Information on age, socio-economic status, medical history, lifestyle, physical activity during adolescence, school club participation, current physical activity, and dietary intake were collected by the survey. Height, weight, percent body fat and muscle mass were estimated by bioelectrical impedance, and BMD was obtained using calcaneal quantitative ultrasound. Using the Poisson regression model, prevalence ratios (PRs) were used to estimate the degree of association between risk factors and osteopenia. Results: The height and current physical activity showed a correlation to the Osteoporosis Index. Among the categorized variables, past physical activity during adolescence (p= 0.002) showed a positive effect on the bone mineral content. In the multivariate model, past physical activity (${\geq}1$ time/wk) had a protective effect on osteopenia (PR, 0.37; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.18 to 0.75) and present physical activity (1000 metabolic equivalent of task-min/wk) decreased the risk of osteopenia (PR, 0.64; 95% CI, 0.44 to 0.91). Conclusions: Past physical activity during adolescence is as important as physical activity in the present for BMD in young men.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.893-920
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• 2012

This study is to investigate causal relationship between individual life satisfaction and air pollution, using ordered probit model with the KLIPS panel dataset for 1998-2008. As determinants, both individual economic and socio-demographic characteristics are considered. Empirical results show that the degree of air pollution has negative effects on individual life satisfaction. The effects of other variables are similar to those of existing studies. This study found that life satisfaction increases along with income increase. However, at a certain point, the increase of life satisfaction becomes smaller even with an increase in income, indicating non-linear effect. It implies that the Easterlin's paradox can be applied to Korea's case. The increase of the other person's income measured by income per capita in the region where respondent resides has negative effects on life satisfaction. On the other hand, a person who has married, own house, stayed healthy, and highly been educated is likely to have higher life satisfaction. Additionally, a person with many household members, urban resident, unemployed or self-employed are negatively correlated with life satisfaction.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.386-396
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to examine young Koreans' welfare attitudes towards youth policy and to analyze the determinants on such attitudes. The main results are as follows. Many young people(72.1%) understand that government should be responsible for youth support and spending on youth support policy(49.5%) and job support policy(59.7%) should be expanded than current level. But only 24.1% approved the provision of youth allowance. There was a significant in-group heterogeneity among the young generation in terms of support for expanding fiscal spending for youth policy and youth allowance provision. Results from the regression analysis indicated sex, age, education level, employment status, type of housing affect attitudes towards youth policy and statistical significance of them was different according to each analytic model. Korean young adult generally perceived that our society was unequal and the higher the perception of inequality, the higher support for youth policy. These results implicates that in-group heterogeneity among youth generation in terms of socio-economic needs and subjective perception should be regarded as important factor in the youth policy making process.

• The Journal of Korean Academic Society of Nursing Education
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.129-139
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• 2010

Purpose: A new scale was developed to measure personal power and ability for health care and promotion including health determinants. Method: Research phases designed for this study were a literature review, scale development, discussion with experts, pre-test for content validity, and survey for construct validity and reliability. The scale was composed of 20 items on 4 point Likert scale and was tested on middle aged Korean-Americans (110) and Koreans (105) living in a community. Result: As the result of factor analysis, 7 dimensions were identified that were similar yet different from the original dimensions. They included health literacy, socialbelonging and gender role, self-perception, health policy participation, socio-cultural interpersonal relationships, spiritual comfort, and socioeconomic involvement. The total variances explained 59.73%. The reliability was .736 of Cronbach's alpha. The mean PPHC was not different in age, gender, economic status and disease presence, but significantly different in country where living, religion, education level, job presence, and emigration period. The increased power group perceived more wellbeing and less depression, high internal locus of control and increased power with others. In addition, they had a greater health promotion lifestyle profile. Conclusion: This scale was statistically reliable and valid to measure personal power of health care.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.941-944
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• 2012

Objective: The aim of current study was to evaluate the changes of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and its clinical, demographic and socioeconomic determinants during chemotherapy and 4 months follow-up in women with breast cancer using a repeated measures framework. Methods and Materials: A double blind cohort study was performed in 100 breast cancer patients given fluorouracil, doxorubicin and cyclophosphamide (FAC) or docetaxel, doxorubicin, cyclophosphamide (TAC) in south of Iran. HRQoL was assessed at baseline, end of chemotherapy and four months thereafter using the QLQ-C30 questionnaire from European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC). Generalized estimating equations (GEE) was applied for statistical analysis. Results: The mean of age at baseline was $48.5{\pm}10.6$. 70% and 14% of patients were married and smokers, respectively, and 20% suffered from another disease besides breast cancer. The results of GEE showed that after control for baseline scores, the HRQoL significantly improved over time. Although, the patients in FAC group had higher scores than the TAC group, the differences also diminished over time. Smoking, marital status and having child affected some scales of HRQoL. None of other variables were significantly related to HRQoL. Conclusion: Although patients in TAC groups had lower level of HRQoL over 8 months follow up, they experienced faster improvement than the FAC group. This implies that in long-term, improvements in TAC group are higher than FAC. Having children was positively correlated with HRQoL. Generally, there were no demographic and socio-economic differences in HRQoL in these patients between the chemotherapeutic regimens.