• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.3411-3417
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• 2013

Over the last 10 years, the number of cancer survivors in South Korea has reached nearly one million with a survival rate of 49.4%. However, integrated supportive care for cancer survivors is lagging. One area in which the current cancer control policy needs updating is in the utilization of information and communication technology (ICT). The remarkable progress in the field of ICT over the past 10 years presents exciting new opportunities for health promotion. Recent communication innovations are conducive to the exchange of meta-information, giving rise to a new service area and transforming patients into active medical consumers. Consequently, such innovations encourage active participation in the mutual utilization and sharing of high-quality information. However, these benefits from new ICTs will almost certainly not be equally available to all, leading to so-called communication inequalities where cancer survivors from lower socioeconomic classes will likely have more limited access to the best means of making use of the health information. Therefore, most essentially, emphasis must be placed on helping cancer survivors and their caregivers utilize such advances in ICT to create a more efficient flow of health information, thereby reducing communication inequalities and expanding social support. Once we enhance access to health information and better manage the quality of information, as a matter of fact, we can expect an alleviation of the health inequalities faced by cancer survivors.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Rural Health Nursing
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.33-41
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• 2013

Purpose: The study was done to explore relationships between residential areas and smoking rates and to identify related factors contributing to smoking in Korea adolescents. Methods: An analysis was done of smoking rates and socioeconomic position indicators by city size based on a 2012 cross-sectional nationwide online survey conducted with 74,186 Korean middle and high school students aged 12-18 years old. Data were analyzed using x2-test and multiple logistic regression with the SPSS/WIN18.0 program. Results: Analyses revealed that rural boys were more likely to be current smokers compared to metropolitan boys (odds ratio 1.18, 95%-confidence interval 1.01; 1.38) but residential areas and smoking rates among girls were not related. After adjusting for covariates, results showed that city size, Family affluence score, economic status, parents' education level, living with parents, school type, and school achievement were related to increased an proportion of adolescents who smoked. Conclusion: In conclusion, rural living is a determinant of smoking among boys. Tobacco control programs should recognize differences in living conditions between rural and urban areas.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.48 no.6
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• pp.319-329
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• 2015

Objectives: Parental socioeconomic status (SES) exerts a substantial influence on children's health. The purpose of this study was to examine factors determining children's private health insurance (PHI) enrolment and children's healthcare utilization according to PHI coverage. Methods: Korea Health Panel data from 2011 (n=3085) was used to explore the factors determining PHI enrolment in children younger than 15 years of age. A logit model contained health status and SES variables for both children and parents. A fixed effects model identified factors influencing healthcare utilization in children aged 10 years or younger, using 2008 to 2011 panel data (n=9084). Results: The factors determining children's PHI enrolment included children's age and sex and parents' educational status, employment status, and household income quintile. PHI exerted a significant effect on outpatient cost, inpatient cost, and number of admissions. Number of outpatient visits and total length of stay were not affected by PHI status. The interaction between PHI and age group increased outpatient cost significantly. Conclusions: Children's PHI enrolment was influenced by parents' SES, while healthcare utilization was affected by health and disability status. Therefore, the results of this study suggest disparities in healthcare utilization according to PHI enrollment.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.8
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• pp.47-56
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• 2021

ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) was established in 2015 from 10 countries to realize the ultimate (adopted in 1997), which aimed to transform ASEAN into a stable, prosperous, and highly competitive region with equitable economic development, reduced poverty, and socioeconomic disparities. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of knowledge level on the AEC of Vietnamese small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the textile and apparel industry towards attitudes, readiness, and performance. This study uses convenience sampling to get questionnaires from 150 SMEs in Hanoi, Vietnam. Then, the paper applies SPSS-AMOS 24 to process data. The empirical results show that AEC's implementation only has a small impact on improving SME performance. However, SMEs have adequate knowledge, attitude, and readiness about AEC. The structural modeling findings indicate that the knowledge factor has an indirect effect on SMEs' performance. This finding is to provide new insight into the roles of attitude and readiness in the case of Vietnam. These factors are needed to mediate the effect of attitudes and readiness in the relationship between knowledge and business performance, a framework strategy of business organizations, and can be used as a conceptual model to improve SMEs' performance.

• The Journal of Economics, Marketing and Management
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.61-71
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• 2024

Purpose: This study explores the impact of discrimination experience on stress levels among Seoul's public housing complex residents, emphasizing the moderating role of social capital. Research design, data and methodology: Utilizing the 2019 Seoul public housing (PH) panel data and an ordered logit model, the research categorizes residents based on personal and environmental factors, contrasting them across different local housing price levels. Results: We find that public housing residents' experience of discrimination has a significant impact on stress, and local housing prices are positively related to stress. Interestingly, stress due to discrimination is more pronounced in high-priced neighborhoods, which are associated with real estate inequality. Conversely, this impact is less pronounced in lower-priced neighborhoods. Importantly, social capital not only has a significant moderating effect on stress for all residents, but in high-priced neighborhoods, it also moderates the stress caused by experiences of discrimination for social housing residents. Conclusions: These findings highlight the need for policy interventions to strengthen social capital and address socioeconomic disparities in public housing, and are significant for analyzing the nuanced relationship between neighborhood, housing affordability, discrimination, and stress in urban communities for public housing residents, which is a socially problematic issue.

• Yonsei Medical Journal
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• v.59 no.9
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• pp.1026-1033
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• 2018

Purpose: Consistent evidence indicates that cervical and breast cancer screening rates are low among socioeconomically deprived women. This study aimed to assess trends in cervical and breast cancer screening rates and to analyze socioeconomic inequalities among Korean women from 2005 to 2015. Materials and Methods: Data from the Korean National Cancer Screening Survey, an annual nationwide cross-sectional survey, were utilized. A total of 19910 women were finally included for analysis. Inequalities in education and household income status were estimated by slope index of inequality (SII) and relative index of inequality (RII), along with calculation of annual percent changes (APCs), to show trends in cancer screening rates. Results: Cervical and breast cancer screening rates increased from 54.8% in 2005 to 65.6% in 2015 and from 37.6% in 2005 to 61.2% in 2015, respectively. APCs in breast cancer screening rates were significant among women with higher levels of household income and education status. Inequalities by household income in cervical cancer screening uptake were observed with a pooled SII estimate of 10.6% (95% CI: 8.1 to 13.2) and RII of 1.4 (95% CI: 1.3 to 1.6). Income inequalities in breast cancer screening were shown to gradually increase over time with a pooled SII of 5.9% (95% CI: 2.9 to 9.0) and RII of 1.2 (95% CI: 0.9 to 1.3). Educational inequalities appeared to diminish over the study period for both cervical and breast cancer screening. Conclusion: Our study identified significant inequalities among socioeconomically deprived women in cervical and breast cancer screening in Korea. Especially, income-related inequalities were greater than education-related inequalities, and these were constant from 2005 to 2015 for both cervical and breast cancer screening.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.174-181
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• 2013

Objectives: Socioeconomic status plays an important role in health care and disease prevention. This study aimed to examine the association between socioeconomic status, measured by education levels and household income, and gastric cancer screening. Methods: A total of 21,220 community-dwelling adults aged 40 to 69 years within a defined geographic area participated in a community health survey in 2009 and 2010. The survey was conducted using a structured questionnaire by trained investigators who visited the subjects' households directly. Logistic regression analysis was used to determine the relationship between self-reported participation in gastric cancer screening and socioeconomic variables (education and household income). Results: The gastric cancer screening rate was 52.1% for subjects in their forties, 63.7% for those in their fifties, and 67.3% for those in their sixties. In multivariate analysis, higher education and income levels were associated with higher rates of gastric cancer screening (high school vs. elementary school: odds ratio [OR] 1.41, 95 % confidence interval [CI] 1.26-1.58; highest income quartile vs. lowest income quartile: OR 1.62, 95% CI 1.44-1.84). The gradient between income and screening rate was more pronounced in the population aged 40 to 49 years than in the other age groups. Conclusions: This study demonstrates that lower socioeconomic status is associated with decreased participation in gastric cancer screening. Our findings suggest that the screening program should be focused on low-income and less-educated populations, especially among younger adults, to reduce health disparities.

• Journal of dental hygiene science
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.207-213
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• 2014

How to eliminate health disparity to ensure health equity is one of major issues that are handled across the world. The purpose of this study was to examine any possible differences in self-rated oral health state according to socioeconomic status and the relationship between the two based on the data of the 5th National Health & Nutrition Examination Survey of 2010~2012. As for differences in self-rated oral health state according to sociodemographic characteristics, the women considered themselves to be in poorer oral health than the men. The older respondents found themselves to be in poorer oral health, and there was a tendency that the respondents who were less educated and whose household income was smaller rated their own health as worse. When a logistic regression analysis was made to determine influential factors for self-rated oral health status, the women perceived they were in better oral health than the men did, and the better-educated respondents were more likely to consider themselves healthier. Concerning disparities in self-rated health state according to income level, there were broader differences in that regard according to an increase of income. The findings of the study illustrated that there was oral health inequity according to social stratum. It's required to make a nationwide effort to promote national oral health, and appropriate support should especially be provided for disadvantaged people at the same time in order to get rid of the gap in oral health among different social classes, as there is a yawning gap between them and the other classes.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.76-89
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• 2014

The functions of urban park including health related benefit and climate adaptation and mitigation are expanding. However, in-depth research and discourse on the equitable distribution of expanded park function has been limited so far. Following research suggests Green Welfare concept to reflect distributive equity and multifunctionality in the process of urban park policy development and execution. This study developed park welfare indices to analyze disparities of neighborhood urban park(NUP) distribution viewed from green welfare by literature review. The findings analyzed through the Correlation Analysis and Cluster Analysis by SPSS 18.0. The results of the study are as follows. First, green welfare is defined as "to receive equitable benefits and participate in the delivery process of green services which are promoting health and securing safety from climate change risks for every citizen by life cycle regardless of socioeconomic status". Second, NUP per person in Seoul indicate meaningful differences by socioeconomic and environmental status of Seoul administrative districts. Park welfare indices correlated to NUP per person were shown population density(negative), percentage of individuals $aged{\geq}65$(positive), percentage of self-reliance of local finance(positive), flood and air pollution vulnerability by climate change(negative). Third, the cluster analysis identifies three significant clusters that indicate differences of park welfare level. Thus, it was found that NUP in Seoul from a green welfare perspective was provided disproportionately. Future urban park policy in Seoul was required equitable distribution of multifunctionality of park beyond quantitative expansion, and priority consideration should be given to park service consumer.

• STI Policy Review
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.105-145
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• 2015

Science, technology and innovation (STI) is crucially important to eradicating poverty, and making advances in various areas such as agriculture, health, environment, transport, industry, and telecommunications. Therefore, it is vital to the overall socioeconomic development of nations. The indispensable role of STI in the competitive globalized economy led to several attempts to measure national STI capacities. The present study outlines STI capacity around three sets of capabilities: technological capabilities, social capabilities, and common capabilities. The Global Science, Technology and Innovation Capacity (GSTIC) index was developed to provide current evidence on the national STI capacities of the countries, and to improve the composite indicators used for such purposes. The GSTIC ranks a large number of countries (167) on the basis of their STI capacities and categories them into four groups: i.e. leaders, dynamic adopters, slow adopters, and laggards. For more meaningful assessment of the STI capacities of nations, it captures the achievement gaps of individual countries with the highest achiever. The study also provides ranking and achievement gaps of nations in the nine GSTIC pillars: technology creation, R&D capacity, R&D performance, technology absorption, diffusion of old technologies, diffusion of recent innovations, exposure to foreign technology, human capital, and enabling factors. A more detailed analysis of the strengths and weaknesses in different pillars of STI capacity of ten selected countries is also provided. The results show that there are significant disparities among nations in STI capacity and its various aspects, and developing countries have much to catch-up with the developed nations. However, different countries may adopt different strategies according to their strengths and weaknesses. Useful insight into the strengths and weaknesses of the national STI capacities of different countries are provided in the study.