• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.381-393
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• 2015

This study is carried out in order to propose a drought risk assessment methodology. This methodology is required to deal with practical questions that a variety of stakeholder often raise in the course of discussions on mitigation measures. With a focus on the socioeconomic aspect of drought, more particularly, residents' hardship from water scarcity, it suggests basic concepts and a system of methods in order to assess hazard, exposure, vulnerability and risk. The case study shows a considerable possibility of the methodology in evaluating potential levels of damages in a certain area, in identifying the boundary of districts where risk is disproportionately concentrated, and also in understanding the underlying risk factors of those districts. The authors think that the proposed methodology is able to offer risk information in terms of socioeconomic damages, and therefore contribute to reducing information gaps that policy-makers are currently encountered with.

• Journal of Korean Public Health Nursing
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.27-38
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• 2008

Purpose: To determine the degree of cardiovascular disease risk according to socioeconomic factors among midlife women in the community and thereby provide baseline data for the development of health promotion programs. Method: A total of 200 women participated in health screenings and a health survey. The survey was performed in November and December, 2006. The survey instruments included socioeconomic factors, health behavior (smoking and exercise), and family history. Biophysical measurement included BMI and blood pressure. Blood samples were drawn for glucose and total cholesterol tests. Results: The mean age was 52.5 years, 34.0% had received education less than 6 years, 70.0% earned a monthly income of less than \1,500,000, and 61.5% were homemakers. Cardiovascular disease risk was significantly different by age (BMI, systolic BP, and exercise), education (systolic BP), monthly income (T. cholesterol), marital status (smoking), and occupation (exercise). Most women had 2 or 3 cardiovascular disease risks. Older age, lower education, and lower income were significantly associated with increased cardiovascular disease risk. Conclusion: Efforts should be made to decrease the number and severity of cardiovascular disease risk factors for midlife women in the community by developing health promotion programs targeting to modify their cardiovascular disease risk factors.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.51 no.5
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• pp.219-226
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• 2018

Objectives: This study aimed to explain the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) gap between the poorest and the wealthiest quintiles in the capitals of Kermanshah and Kurdistan Provinces (Kermanshah and Sanandaj), in western Iran. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study conducted among 1772 adults. Data on socio-demographic characteristics, socioeconomic status (SES), lifestyle factors, body mass index, and HRQoL of participants were collected using a self-administered questionnaire. The slope and relative indices of inequality (SII and RII, respectively) were employed to examine socioeconomic inequality in poor HRQoL. Blinder-Oaxaca (BO) decomposition was used to quantify the contribution of explanatory variables to the gap in the prevalence of poor HRQoL between the wealthiest and the poorest groups. Results: The overall crude and age-adjusted prevalence of poor HRQoL among adults was 32.0 and 41.8%, respectively. The SII and RII indicated that poor HRQoL was mainly concentrated among individuals with lower SES. The absolute difference (%) in the prevalence of poor HRQoL between the highest and lowest SES groups was 28.4. The BO results indicated that 49.9% of the difference was explained by different distributions of age, smoking behavior, physical inactivity, chronic health conditions, and obesity between the highest and lowest SES groups, while the remaining half of the gap was explained by the response effect. Conclusions: We observed a pro-rich distribution of poor HRQoL among adults in the capitals of Kermanshah and Kurdistan Provinces. Policies and strategies aimed at preventing and reducing smoking, physical inactivity, chronic health conditions, and obesity among the poor may reduce the gap in poor HRQoL between the highest and lowest SES groups in Iran.

• The Korean Journal of Community Living Science
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.49-58
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• 2005

The purpose of this study was to identify the eating habits and attitudes by socioeconomic factors(sex, age, educational level and annual family income) of adults in rural areas. The survey was administered by the nationwide 580 adult persons in rural in February 2001. The survey was conducted by a questionnaire that was composed of 20 items of likert-type scale. These data were analyzed by using SPSS(version 10.0) PC package and were expressed by mean and frequency. The results are following : 1) The degree of efforts to eating safe and fresh food were significantly different according to age(p<0.05), educational level(p<0.001) and annual family income(p<0.001). 2) The degree of efforts to nutritional balanced diet were significantly different by age(p<0.05) and annual family income(p<0.00l). 3) The concern about overeating of energyㆍsaltㆍfat were increased as the educational level goes up(p<0.001). 4) Meal regularity was more regular as age goes up(p<0.05). 5) Regarding for eating a variety of food were differed significantly by age(p<0.05) and educational level(p<0.01). 6) There are significantly different in duration of meal time of the subjects by sex(p<0.001), age(p<0.05) and educational level(p<0.0l). 7) Preference for snacks was significantly different by age (p<0.05) and educational level(p<0.0l). 8) There were significant differences in preference for processed foods(p<0.001) and frequency of using a chemical seasoning in cooking(p<0.05) of the subjects by educational level. 9) As the age(p<0.001) goes up and the educational level(p<0.001) and annual family income(p<0.001) goes down, they did not recognize the necessity for improving eating habits. According to these results, there were differences in eating habits between socioeconomic characteristics group in rural area. Therefore, this study can be used as basic data for specific nutritional intervention program in rural areas.

• Korean Journal of Forensic Psychology
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.117-134
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• 2020

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of callous-unemotional traits(CU) on juvenile crime and explore additional effects of parenting and socioeconomic status on juvenile crime. A total of 103 juvenile probationers completed self-report questionnaires at 3 probation offices in Seoul, and a total of 123 high school students completed self-report questionnaires in Seoul and Gyeonggi. The results of this study were as follows. First, juvenile crime group showed higher score in uncaring subscale of CU, lower parent's education and lower economic level than normal group. Second, in both groups, uncaring subscale of CU showed negative correlations with parent's acceptance and daily monitoring. Third, in logistic regression, uncaring subscale of CU and low economic level significantly predicted juvenile crime group. This study suggests that uncaring characteristic of CU and socioeconomic status are potential factors contributing to juvenile crime.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.43-56
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• 2007

Since the 1970s, along with an increasing number of motor vehicles in Korea, road crashes and casualties started to increase and eventually resulted in a serious public health problem starting from the beginning of the 1990s. Government authorities, however, have been not so proactive with reducing road crashes and injuries as well as deaths and have been reluctant to design effective safety strategies that could be established in collaboration with relevant multidisciplinary professionals. This paper aims at showing the status of road safety versus socioeconomic development in Korea and highlighting safety strategies that particularly need the participation of medical professionals. Six indicators to measure socioeconomic development and two indices for road safety were examined and international comparisons were made, finding road safety in Korea has been not corresponding to its level of development. The imbalance between socioeconomic development and road safety will certainly require the government authorities to look for effective safety strategies necessitating cooperation and collaboration with relevant experts including medical professionals. To make a provision for such needs in the near future, studies and experiences previously reported in the literature of traffic medicine and the world congresses of the International Traffic Medicine Association since 1984 were reviewed and categorized to focus on the strategies as well as measures that would be most effective in a mid-income country such as Korea.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.155-182
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• 1997

Objectives : This study was designed to compare North Korea and South Korea in measures of the quality of life (physical quality of life index and human development index) and to investigate the impact of selected medical and socioeconomic factors on PQL variables. Data and Methods : The World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme, and Population Reference Bureau were the principal sources of statistical data of 121 countries. Variables included infant mortality, life expectancy at birth, literacy rate, secondary school enrollment (male and female), GNP per capita, population per doctor, daily calorie supply per capita, and a composite PQL index. The Ordinary Least Square model was employed for cross-countries analysis. Findings : Both countries under quite different political and economic systems saw big improvememts in the quality of life, reducing mortality and prolonging life expectancy during the past three decades. In recent decad, however, North Korea has experienced abrupt exacerbation in the quality of life. Significant improvements in infant mortality of the population wer attributable mainly to GNP per capita and the secondary school enrollemt of female. The principal predictors of life expectancy at birth were population per doctor, infant mortality, and literacy rate. The secondary school enrollment of female and population per doctor were significantly associated with improvements in the physical quality of life index (PQLI). Conclusion : The results of this study confirmed a point illustrated by other studies : The association between quality of life as a measure of health status and socioeconomic factors was strong and positive. The important contribution of educational attainment in general, female education level in particular to improvements in the quality of life deserves good news for building an integrated health care system in the reunified Korea, taking into account the high level of education two koreas are enjoying. Meanwhile, when a sharp drop in the quality of life has been observed in North Korea under serious economic difficulties and food shortage in recent decade, the significant contribution of economic development to improvements in the quality of life poses bad nows for reunifying Korean health care in economic terms.

• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.33-62
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• 2003

The purpose of this study is to analyze the relative importance of three factor -socioeconomic development, public health development, egalitarian nature of socioeconomic development- affecting mortality declines. Infant mortality rate and life expectancy at birth are used as the mortality index, that is the dependent variables, while GNP is used as the indicator of socioeconomic development, primary school enrollment ratio of female as the indicator of egalitarian nature of socioeconomic development, population per hospital bed as the indicator of public health. The data of these variables are collected two time-periods -before 1970 and during 1970-1980- over 50 countries. The explanatory data analysis is used as the statistical technique. We can find whether the relationship between dependent variable and independent variables are linear or nonlinear, and which case is the influential case in our model. The main results of this study are followings. First, the association between infant mortality rates and four indices are not linear. The most important factor explaining the variation of infant mortality is GNP, while primary enrollment of female is the second and GINI is the third important factor. However, population per hospital bed does not have a significant effect on the infant mortality rates in this study. Second, life expectancy at birth is log-linearly related to GNP. Unlike infant mortality rates, the most important factor explaining the variation of life expectance at birth is women's education and the next important factor GNP, and then the third one GINI. But, still population per hospital bed is not significantly related to the variation of life expectance in this study.

• Journal of Korean Society of Rural Planning
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.47-62
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• 2019

This paper considers the effect of "comprehensive rural community improvement project" in terms of three factors - physical environment, rural tourism, socioeconomic and analyzed the path effect leading to the final outcome - the quality of life of residents, using covariance structure analysis. By doing so, this study looks into why residents prefer the improvement of a physical environment that takes a public nature. The analysis showed that the socioeconomic effect did not have an immediate impact on the improvement of quality of life of residents at a significance level of 5%, whereas the improvement of physical environment had a static effect on the quality of living at a significance level of 1%. Residents' preference for "hardware" or physical environment may be attributed to lack of their understanding of human factors such as social capital. However, analyzing the impact of specific contents of the project on performance, it is found that as projects fail to generate a tangible socioeconomic effect, residents strategically prefer the repair of their physical environment such as public facilities that directly affect their daily lives, so that they can maximize an improvement of the quality of living. Hence, this study suggests that instead of attributing the failure of rural community development projects to residents, macroscopic problems of rural communities and specific contents of projects should be dealt with before the success of any project can be discussed.

• Journal of Agricultural Extension & Community Development
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.57-76
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• 2003

This study examined th socioeconomic returns to agricultural research in Korea, using multivariate time series technique and Akino-Hyami formula. Results showed that the socioeconomic returns were quite competitive with internal rates of 49.18% and 56.04% for agricultural research and horticultural research respectively. The lagged response to the investment in research varied according to the type of production: agricultural production responded to agricultural research shock about three tears after the shock, while horticultural and livestock productions responded only after abort seven, and ten years, respectively. The magnitudes of the impacts of investment, however, showed a similar pattern for the three types of production: after responding to the shock, the impact increased until a peak was reached and then declined and got down to zero after some years. The peak was reached within five, seventeen, and twenty tears after the intial expenditures for agricultural, horticultural, and livestock productions, respectively. Moreover, the impacts disappeared about thirty tears after the initial expenditures for all three types of production. These findings were consistent with the results from previous literature on agricultural research, which indicated that the lag lengths of the response to investments on research were between seven and thirty years.