Considered as one of the deadliest tropical cyclones to Chave hit the country and the strongest typhoon recorded at landfall, Typhoon Yolanda (internationally known as Haiyan) swept across the Visayan region, leaving behind a devastation that mobilized national and international humanitarian efforts on a grand scale. In response to the growing global awareness for the need for disaster preparedness, the Philippine Nurses Association (PNA), through its Disaster Preparedness Committee, has been training members from different local chapters on emergency and disaster management for 1 the past four years . The training seminar aimed to capacitate the participants and, eventually through them, their respective chapter members in preparing for and managing disaster events in coordination with government agencies and international humanitarian relief efforts. The PNA Board of Governors has also approved its Emergency Response Plan and Policy outlining the communication and coordination mechanism in times of emergency and disaster. Networking and linkage with the Department of Health - Health Emergency and Management Staff has also been formalized through a Memorandum of Understanding making PNA a member of the Health cluster, Mental Health and Psychological Support Services (MHPSS) cluster and Water and Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) cluster. When super typhoon Yolanda made its landfall and left devastation behind its path across the country, the capacity for response of the local and national government has been truly tested. PNA for its small part has also been challenged to review its preparedness efforts in terms of capacity building, policy and advocacy, as well as networking and coordination.
Disasters ; Government Agencies

Lay public's concerns around health and health information are increasing. In response, governments and government agencies are establishing websites to address such concerns and improve health literacy by providing better access to validated health information. Since 2011, the Korean government has constructed the National Health Information Portal (NHIP) website run in collaboration with the Korean Academy of Medical Sciences (KAMS). This study therefore aimed to 1) examine consumer use of NHIP, with respect to the usage patterns, evaluation on health information provided, and perceived effectiveness of the site; and 2) identify factors that may impact perceived effectiveness of the site. An online survey was conducted with 164 NHIP users, recruited through a popup window on the main screen of the portal website from October to November 2015. The significant predicting factors supported by the data include the relevance of health information on the site, the usefulness of information in making health decisions, and the effective visualization of information. These factors can inform future efforts to design more effective health information websites, possibly based on metadata systems, to further advance the lay public's information seeking and health literacy.
Cooperative Behavior ; Government Agencies ; Health Literacy ; Internet

Genomics ; Government Agencies ; Laboratories ; United States

OBJECTIVE: To discuss the various factors contributory to maritime disaster preparedness in the Philippines, in the context of the sinking of the MV Dona Paz and formulate recommendations to address these factors.

METHOD: Review of the state of maritime preparedness in the pre-disaster setting and the post-disaster response following the sinking of the MV Dona Paz by the government and responsible agencies. A scrutiny of the state of preparedness of concerned agencies and subsequent response to the disaster was conducted with the objective of formulating recommendations which may lead to prevention and mitigate loss of lives.

RESULTS: Multiple factors accounted for the occurrence of this tragedy. These factors include an inherent risk due to the geography of shipping industry and its labor force. Economic conditions prevent both the industry and government agencies from upgrading vessels and communications equipment. Lack of enforcement of existing regulations allows vessels to sail overloaded and at times manned by less-than-qualified crew. Delayed response and deficient post-disaster medical response may have led to a disproportionately high mortality.

CONCLUSIONS: The systems inadequacies of the Philippine maritime disaster response mechanism are highlighted by the Dona Paz tragedy. Many of the factors contributing to the disproportionately high incidence of maritime disasters in the Philippines and the resulting loss of limb may be preventable. Recommendations on regulation and enforcement, disaster preparedness, search and rescue, and medical response are discussed.

This study investigated the prevalence of nutrition labeling and claims on processed and packaged foods. The final database consists of 1,287 foods, which were collected in two supermarkets in the Seoul area from September to November, 2006. An estimated 78% of KFDA-regulated processed, and packaged foods have nutrition labels. Nutrient content claims on food labels were identified in 21% of the foods which have nutrition labels. The prevalence of nutrition labels in this study is much higher than in previous studies due to the current expansion of the mandatory labeling regulation. However, false labeling and misleading contents claims were also identified. The food label is an important tool for enhancing the public's understanding of healthy choices of processed foods. Therefore, to maximize the benefits of the nutrition labeling regulation, industries, government agencies and health professionals should work together to help consumers make healthy dietary choices and improve their health.
Food Labeling* ; Government Agencies ; Health Occupations ; Prevalence* ; Seoul

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Obesity is a serious concern worldwide, for which the restaurant industry holds partial responsibility. This study was conducted to estimate restaurant consumers' intention to select healthy menu items and to examine the relationships among behavioral beliefs, past behaviors, attitudes and behavioral intentions, which are known to be major determinants of consumer behaviors. SUBJECTS/METHODS: An online, self-administered survey was distributed for data collection. The study sample consisted of customers who reported having visited casual dining restaurants in the last three months at the time of the survey. Structural equation modeling was used to verify the fit of the proposed research model. RESULTS: Structural equation modeling revealed that the proposed model supports the sequential, mediated (indirect) relationships among behavioral beliefs, past behaviors, attitudes and behavioral intentions toward healthy menu selection. CONCLUSION: This study contributes to the available literature regarding obesity by adding past behaviors, one of the most influential variables involved in prediction of future behaviors of consumers, to the TPB model, enabling a better understanding of restaurant consumers' rational decision process regarding healthy menu choices. The results of this study provide practical implications for restaurant practitioners and government agencies regarding ways to promote healthy menus.
Consumer Behavior ; Data Collection ; Government Agencies ; Intention* ; Obesity ; Restaurants

Recently, digital health has gained the attention of physicians, patients, and healthcare industries. Digital health, a broad umbrella term, can be defined as an emerging health area that uses brand new digital or medical technologies involving genomics, big data, wearables, mobile applications, and artificial intelligence. Digital health has been highlighted as a way of realizing precision medicine, and in addition is expected to become synonymous with health itself with the rapid digitization of all health-related data. In this article, we first define digital health by reviewing the diverse range of definitions among academia and government agencies. Based on these definitions, we then review the current status of digital health, mainly in Korea, suggest points that are missing from the discussion or ought to be added, and provide future directions of digital health in clinical practice by pointing out certain key points.
Artificial Intelligence ; Genomics ; Government Agencies ; Government Regulation ; Health Care Sector ; Humans ; Korea ; Mobile Applications ; Precision Medicine ; Telemedicine

Medical professionalism in Korea is underdeveloped because of a strong state that has been in place for the past one hundred years. If the government actively controls policies and regulates the professional associations under state corporatism, deterioration of professionalism is inevitable. The current medical insurance in Korea is unified as a monopsony, but it is not the 'bipartite corporatism' between the government and the medical profession such as the National Health Services (NHS) in Britain. All insurance matters related to a physician's practice, including standards of treatment and the physician's reimbursement, are handled by the government. Therefore, the authority of medical expertise is subordinate to the authority of the government agency, and physicians are forced to follow the goals and policies that are set by the government. Physicians' professional ethics are the core of their occupational control. The declaration of "Codes of Ethics" by the Korean Medical Association, before it was revised in April 2006, defined a "sincere fulfillment in practicing medicine" as a full duty of the physician's life. If this declaration was intended to be interpreted literally, all physicians in Korea could be asked to pursue identical lives with the same goals as their professional life as a physician. If it was not intended to be interpreted literally, then physicians may develop their own ethical approaches according to their individual perspectives on life. The former case is an unethical form of state control while; the latter case would make legitimate occupational regulation impossible. The ideal of medical service is an institutional attribute of an occupation and not a duty of an individual's life. Therefore, it should be possible for physicians to work under an occupational control that requires specific standards for the members of the profession and embodies their professional values.
Codes of Ethics ; Ethics, Professional ; Government Agencies ; Hypogonadism ; Insurance ; Korea ; Mitochondrial Diseases ; National Health Programs ; Occupations ; Ophthalmoplegia

Biological diversity, also known as biodiversity, is an important criterion for measuring the value of an ecosystem. As biodiversity is closely related to human welfare and quality of life, many efforts to restore and maintain the biodiversity of species have been made by government agencies and non-governmental organizations, thereby drawing a substantial amount of international attention. In the fields of biological research, biodiversity is widely measured using traditional statistical indices such as the Shannon-Wiener index, species richness, evenness, and relative dominance of species. However, some biologists and ecologists have difficulty using these indices because they require advanced mathematical knowledge and computational techniques. Therefore, we developed VBioindex, a user-friendly program that is capable of measuring the Shannon-Wiener index, species richness, evenness, and relative dominance. VBioindex serves as an easy to use interface and visually represents the results in the form of a simple chart and in addition, VBioindex offers functions for long-term investigations of datasets using time-series analyses.
Biodiversity* ; Computational Biology ; Dataset ; Ecology ; Ecosystem ; Government Agencies ; Humans ; Quality of Life

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a web-based intervention program for depressive symptoms management among Korean adults. METHODS: After the first author developed a user-centered design website intended to manage the depressive symptoms of the general public, two hundred and seventy two participants were screened and randomly assigned into experimental and control groups. These subjects underwent a 12-week nonequivalent pretest and post.test evaluation program to determine changes in their depression scores, which were measured using the Korean Depression Scale. Subjects' unique IP addresses were used for monitoring their access periods on the website. RESULTS: There were no significant differences in the baseline and outcome characteristics of both experimental and control groups. Moreover, findings revealed that the total depression score of the experimental group (who accessed the developed web-site three times a week with at least an hour per session) showed to have decreased immensely with a mean of 5.57. On the contrary, only a 0.09 point difference resulted between the pre and post tests of the control group (who accessed other depression management websites generally available). CONCLUSIONS: Web-based interventions could be an effective and inexpensive means of managing depressive symptoms of Koreans. Findings from this effectiveness study of an internet-based program could also be used by a variety of audiences including government agencies, educators, and health care professionals concerned with mental health promotion and prevention.
Adult ; Delivery of Health Care ; Depression ; Government Agencies ; Humans ; Information Systems ; Internet ; Management Information Systems ; Mental Health