• Environmental Analysis Health and Toxicology
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• v.30 no.sup
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• pp.3.1-3.11
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• 2015

Objectives This study presents the indicators and proxy variables for the quantitative assessment of green chemistry technologies and evaluates the relative importance of each assessment element by consulting experts from the fields of ecology, chemistry, safety, and public health. Methods The results collected were subjected to an analytic hierarchy process to obtain the weights of the indicators and the proxy variables. Results These weights may prove useful in avoiding having to resort to qualitative means in absence of weights between indicators when integrating the results of quantitative assessment by indicator. Conclusions This study points to the limitations of current quantitative assessment techniques for green chemistry technologies and seeks to present the future direction for quantitative assessment of green chemistry technologies.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.227-235
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• 2015

Food-Health indicators have been developed and utilized internationally in the 'Food' domain of environment and health indicators. In Korea, however, Food Safety Health Indicators which are in the introductory stage had been developed separately from Environmental Health Indicators. The aim of the current study is to suggest feasible applications of the domestic Food Safety Health Indicators as a case study. We introduced 3 possible applications which are as follows: 1) production of two types of Integrated Food Safety Health Index; 2) conduction of correlation analysis between the Integrated Food Safety Health Index and Food Safety Health Indicators; 3) conduction of regression analysis to evaluate the relationship between the Integrated Food Safety Health Index and socioeconomic status. As a result, we provided the calculated Integrated Food Safety Health Index I and Integrated Food Safety Health Index II, which represents the regional food safety level in relative and absolute terms, respectively. Integrated Food Safety Health Index I was significantly correlated with the outbreaks of food-borne diseases (caused by Campylobacter jejuni, Bacillus cereus, Salmonella spp. and unknown cause) and incidence of E.coli infections. Integrated Food Safety Health Index II significantly decreased as the proportion of foreigners and women increased, and increased as the population density increased. Utilization of such Integrated Food Safety Health Indicators may be helpful in understanding the overall domestic food safety level and identifying the indicators which must be considered with priorities to enhance the food safety levels regionally and domestically. Furthermore, analyzing the association between Integrated Food Safety Health Index and factors other than food safety could be useful in conducting risk management and identifying susceptible populations. Food Safety Health Indicators can be useful in other applications, and may serve as a supporting material in establishing or modifying policy plans to enhance food safety. Therefore, keen interests by researchers accompanied by further studies on food safety health indicators are needed.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.1759-1764
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• 2015

Purpose: To establish the concept of lung cancer hazard assessment theoretical models, evaluating the degree of lung cancer risk of Beijing for regional population lung cancer hazard assessment to provide a basis for technical support. Materials and Methods: ISO standards were used to classify stratified analysis for the entire population, life cycle, processes and socioeconomic management. Associated risk factors were evaluated as lung cancer hazard risk assessment first class indicators. Study design: Using the above materials, indicators were given the weight coefficients, building lung cancer risk assessment theoretical models. Regional data for Beijing were entered into the theoretical model to calculate the parameters of each indicator and evaluate the degree of local lung cancer risk. Results: Adopting the concept of lung cancer hazard assessment and theoretical models for regional populations, we established a lung cancer hazard risk assessment system, including 2 first indicators, 8 secondary indicators and 18 third indicators. All indicators were given weight coefficients and used as information sources. Score of hazard for lung cancer was 84.4 in Beijing. Conclusions: Comprehensively and systematically building a lung cancer risk assessment theoretical model for regional populations in conceivable, evaluating the degree of lung cancer risk of Beijing, providing technical support and scientific basis for interventions for prevention.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.15
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• pp.6303-6309
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• 2015

Differences in socioeconomic status (SES) such as income levels may partly explain why breast cancer screening (BCS) disparities exist in countries where health care services are free or heavily subsidized. However, factors that contribute to such differences in SES among women living in well resourced Middle East countries are not fully understood. This quantitative study investigated factors that influence SES and BCS of Arab women. Understanding of such factors can be useful for the development of effective intervention strategies that aim to increase BCS uptake among Arab women. Using data from a cross-sectional survey among 1,063 Arabic-speaking women in Qatar, age 35+, additional data analysis was performed to determine the relationship between socioeconomic indicators such as income and other factors in relation to BCS activities. This study found that income is determined and influenced by education level, occupation, nationality, years of residence in the country, level of social activity, self-perceived health status, and living area. Financial stress, unemployment, and unfavorable social conditions may impede women's participation in BCS activities in well resourced Middle East countries.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.40 no.5
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• pp.404-410
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• 2007

Objectives: Due to the assumptions of homogeneity as well as challenges in the socioeconomic position of the elderly, they have been relatively neglected in studies of health inequalities. Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate the social inequalities in preventive services among elderly men and women. Methods: Data were obtained from a nationally representative sample of 342 men and 525 women aged 65 and over collected during the 2001 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Age adjusted proportions and logistic regression were used to identify the social patterning of preventive services among elderly Koreans using various social position indicators. Results: The findings of this study generally supported the presence of social gradients in preventive services among the Korean elderly. The likelihood of using the service becomes progressively higher with social position. Educational level, income, and self-rated living status were significantly associated with increased medical checkups and cancer checks. In addition, logistic regression detected educational inequalities only among older women receiving BP checks. After being stratified based on health status and chronic disease status, social disparities still existed when educational level and self-rated living status were considered. Among unhealthy individuals, place of residence was observed as a barrier to medical checkups. Conclusions: This study demonstrated strong and consistent associations between socioeconomic position and preventive services among the elderly in Korea. The results indicate that public health strategies should be developed to reduce the barriers to preventive services encountered by the elderly.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.1-20
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• 2004

This study is to examine relationships of several socioeconomic position indicators with mortality risk in a nationwide longitudinal study of South Korea. The Korea Labor & Income Panel Study, conducted on a probability sample of urban South Korean households by Korea Labor Institute, contains date of death information for the decedents which were used to estimate relative risks of mortality and their $95\%$ confidence intervals (CI) with Cox regression analysis. A total of 125 men and women among 8,415 subjects died between 1998 and 2002. Socioeconomic differentials in mortality were observed after adjustment for sex and age. Those with less than 12-year education had 1.90 times $(95\%\;CI=1.25-2.91)$ greater mortality risk than those with 12-year education or more. Greater mortality risks were also found among those with low occupational class and manual occupation. The magnitude of differentials in mortality risks between occupational class were similar in two different approaches to measuring women's occupational class: (1) approach 1 where women, married or not, retain their own occupational class, and (2) approach 2 where married women are assigned their husbands' occupational class. Relative risks of dying among those with low household Income were 1.62 $(95\%\; CI=1.08-2.42)$ compared with the counterparts. Those who reported economic hardship at the time of survey in 1998 had greater risk of mortality $(RR=1.83,\;95\%\;CI=1.21-2.78)$ than those who did not. In conclusion, increased social discourse and policy discussions about these health inequalities are needed in Korean society. Future studies should explore the causes and mechanisms of socioeconomic mortality inequalities.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.55 no.1
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• pp.19-27
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• 2022

This study estimated the direct and indirect socioeconomic costs of 238 diseases and 22 injuries from a social perspective in Korea from 2007 to 2015. The socioeconomic cost of each disease group was calculated based on the Korean Standard Disease Classification System. Direct costs were estimated using health insurance claims data provided by the National Health Insurance Service. The numbers of outpatients and inpatients with the main diagnostic codes for each disease were selected as a proxy indicator for estimating patients' medical use behavior by disease. The economic burden of disease from 2007 to 2015 showed an approximately 20% increase in total costs. From 2007 to 2015, communicable diseases (including infectious, maternal, pediatric, and nutritional diseases) accounted for 8.9-12.2% of the socioeconomic burden, while non-infectious diseases accounted for 65.7-70.7% and injuries accounted for 19.1-22.8%. The top 5 diseases in terms of the socioeconomic burden were self-harm (which took the top spot for 8 years), followed by cirrhosis of the liver, liver cancer, ischemic heart disease, and upper respiratory infections in 2007. Since 2010, the economic burden of conditions such as low back pain, falls, and acute bronchitis has been included in this ranking. This study expanded the scope of calculating the burden of disease at the national level by calculating the burden of disease in Koreans by gender and disease. These findings can be used as indicators of health equality and as useful data for establishing community-centered (or customized) health promotion policies, projects, and national health policy goals.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.52 no.5
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• pp.281-291
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• 2019

Objectives: The validity of instruments measuring socioeconomic position (SEP) has been a major area of concern in research on cardiovascular health disparities. The purpose of this systematic review is to identify the current status of the methods used to measure SEP in research on cardiovascular health disparities in Korea and to provide directions for future research. Methods: Relevant articles were obtained through electronic database searches with manual searches of reference lists and no restriction on the date of publication. SEP indicators were categorized into compositional, contextual, composite, and life-course measures. Results: Forty-eight studies published from 2003 to 2018 satisfied the review criteria. Studies utilizing compositional measures mainly relied on a limited number of SEP parameters. In addition, these measures hardly addressed the time-varying and subjective features of SEP. Finding valid contextual measures at the organizational, community, and societal levels that are appropriate to Korea's context remains a challenge, and these are rarely modeled simultaneously. Studies have rarely focused on composite and life-course measures. Conclusions: Future studies should develop and utilize valid compositional and contextual measures and appraise social patterns that vary across time, place, and culture using such measures. Studies should also consider multilevel influences, adding a focus on the interactions between different levels of intertwined SEP factors to advance the design of research. More attention should be given to composite and life-course measures.

• Journal of Korean Public Health Nursing
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.416-428
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• 2020

Purpose: This study identified socioeconomic factors affecting the health status of Korean adults. Methods: Secondary data from 12,921 adults aged 19 to 64 old in the 7th Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey were used. The participants' health status was measured using the indicators that included health behaviors (smoking, high-risk drinking, strength exercise, and aerobic physical activity) and health outcomes (metabolic syndrome, and subjective health status). Results: For all health behaviors and health outcomes, gender, age, educational level, and income were common affecting factors. Regarding health behaviors, the employment status was related to smoking, high-risk drinking, strength exercise, and aerobic physical activity. The marital status was related to high-risk drinking, strength exercise, and aerobic physical activity. The household type was related to smoking. The residential area was related to smoking, high-risk drinking, and aerobic physical activity. For health outcomes, the household type was related to obesity, and subjective health status; residential area was related to obesity. Conclusion: This study presented basic data for assessing the differences in health status. The characteristics of the affecting factors to health status should be considered, depending on the health behaviors and health outcomes.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2019.05a
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• pp.397-397
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• 2019

With the consequences of climate change becoming more evident, research on climate-associated risks has become a basis for climate adaptation and mitigation. Amongst the different sectors and natural resources considered in assessing such risks, drought is one impact to our environment that experiences stress from climate change but is often overlooked and has the potential to bring severe consequences when drought occurs. For example, when temperatures are higher, water demand increases and water supply decreases; when precipitation patterns fluctuate immensely, floods and droughts occur more frequently at greater magnitudes, putting stress on ecosystems. Hence, it is important for us to evaluate drought risk to observe how different climate change and socioeconomic scenarios can affect this vital life resource. In this study, we review the context of drought risk on the basis of climate change impacts and socioeconomic indicators. As underlined in the IPCC AR5 report, the risks are identified by understanding the vulnerability, exposure, and hazards of drought. This study analyzed drought risk on a global scale with different RCP scenarios projected until the year 2099 with a focus on the variables population, precipitation, water resources, and temperature.