No abstract available.
Abstracting and Indexing as Topic* ; Evidence-Based Medicine* ; Methods*

BACKGROUND: As modern epidemiologic studies began to identify obesity as a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension, and cancer, measuring the degree of excess body fat is important on epidemiologic surveys. The evaluation of obesity level in epidemiologic surveys has been mostly done indirectly by measuring patient's height and weight. But, the anthropometry could not be done to respondents of recalling past anthropometric values or to proxy respondents. This study was attempted to elucidate usefulness of a somatotype drawing as a measuring instrument of obesity level in epidemiologic surveys in Korea. METHOD: The inclusion criteria of subjects were (1) members of the Seoul Cohort Study, who were recruited by self-administered structured questionnaire survey through mailing to the healthy men between the ages of 40 and 59 years through the program of a biennial health checkup offered by the Korean Medical Insurance Corporation (KMIC), and (2) volunteers for cancer screening program offered by KMIC. For assessing usefulness of the instrument, measurement of status/weight and self-administered questionnaire survey were done separately through the program of a biennial health checkup and of cancer screening. RESULTS: The data were collected from 138 subjects, whose Body Mass Index (kg/M2) was 23.58+/-1.46 (mean+/-SD). When the validity was measured through correlation with BMI, Spearman's correlation coefficient (rs) was 0.72 (p<0.05), that remained statistically significant after adjusting age, education level, and monthly income and occupation. And, the grades of somatotypo drawing were grouped as 1-3, 4-6, 7-8 by ANOVA and Tukey test. CONCLUSIONS: Instrument using somatotype drawing is applicable to screen degree of body fat in self-administered questionnaire surveys in Korea.
Adipose Tissue ; Anthropometry ; Body Mass Index ; Cardiovascular Diseases ; Cohort Studies ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Early Detection of Cancer ; Education ; Epidemiologic Studies ; Humans ; Hypertension ; Insurance ; Korea* ; Male ; Obesity* ; Occupations ; Postal Service ; Proxy ; Risk Factors ; Seoul ; Somatotypes* ; Volunteers

The aim of this study was to assess the degree of association between individual stress and the amount of smoking among male senior students of a medical college. The questionnaire survey was conducted twice for collecting the data on stress level in terms of BEPSl score, smoking amounts, alcohol intake, and residence type in 1992 and 1993. Among the 223 responders, 39.9% were smokers. In the smokers, the association between stress level and smoking amount was significant after controlling for alcohol intake and residence type (P < 0.l). Especially in the group of living without family, the association was more significant (p=0.06). Therefore, it is recommendable that the stress management program is called upon for the student smokers to reduce smoking amount.
Humans ; Male ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Smoke* ; Smoking*

After publishing results of a study that revealed diarrheagenic and emetic activity in 4-5-day old mice infected with Kudoa septempunctata (K. septempunctata) spores, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 11 events of “Kudoa food poisoning” in 2015. The epidemiological design of the previous study was descriptive rather than analytical; therefore, this study aimed to further investigate the pathogenicity of K. septempunctata. Academic articles showing evidence of the pathogenicity of K. septempunctata were searched via PubMed using the citation discovery tool. Information regarding the kinds of experimental animals and inoculum spores used, as well as study results were extracted. Four articles evaluating the pathogenicity of Myxospran parasites were selected; the first article suggested the pathogenicity of K. septempunctata, while the remaining three articles reported no abnormal symptoms or histopathologic changes. Our findings indicate that there is weak evidence supporting the pathogenicity of K. septempunctata. Further studies evaluating the pathogenicity of K. septempunctata are needed urgently.
Animals ; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S.) ; Food Parasitology ; Foodborne Diseases ; Intestinal Diseases, Parasitic ; Korea ; Mice ; Myxozoa ; Parasites ; Spores ; Virulence

After publishing results of a study that revealed diarrheagenic and emetic activity in 4-5-day old mice infected with Kudoa septempunctata (K. septempunctata) spores, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 11 events of “Kudoa food poisoning” in 2015. The epidemiological design of the previous study was descriptive rather than analytical; therefore, this study aimed to further investigate the pathogenicity of K. septempunctata. Academic articles showing evidence of the pathogenicity of K. septempunctata were searched via PubMed using the citation discovery tool. Information regarding the kinds of experimental animals and inoculum spores used, as well as study results were extracted. Four articles evaluating the pathogenicity of Myxospran parasites were selected; the first article suggested the pathogenicity of K. septempunctata, while the remaining three articles reported no abnormal symptoms or histopathologic changes. Our findings indicate that there is weak evidence supporting the pathogenicity of K. septempunctata. Further studies evaluating the pathogenicity of K. septempunctata are needed urgently.
Animals ; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S.) ; Food Parasitology ; Foodborne Diseases* ; Intestinal Diseases, Parasitic ; Korea ; Mice ; Myxozoa ; Parasites ; Spores ; Virulence

S +nce errors in prescription potentially result in serious outcomes but can be prevented by multiple interventions, it is very important to update the knowledge on medicines and to improve physicians' prescription for medication safety. The aim of this article is to review useful interventions to improve prescription in developed countries. The passive dissemination of drug information or clinical practice guide-lines alone is an insufficient method for improving most pre-scribing behaviors, although necessary. While the concurrent drug utilization review (DUR) could reduce inappropriate drug prescription and help physicians' prescribing decisions, retrospective DUR and penalties should not be operated in order to hold down the cost of medication.
Developed Countries* ; Drug Prescriptions ; Drug Utilization Review ; Prescriptions* ; Retrospective Studies

BACKGROUND: The evaluation of obesity in practice has been done indirectly by anthropometric values such as body mass index(BMI), waist and hip circumferences and waisthip ratio(WHR). Somatotype drawing developed by Srensen has been evaluated as a simple instrument of obesity without real somatic measuring in several studies. This study was attempted to evaluate correlation between somatotype drawing and anthropometric values. METHODS: The subjects were measured anthroprmetric values such as height, weight, hip and waist circumferences. After calculating BMI and WHR, we evaluated correlation between these values and somatotype drawing. And we tried to grouping of somatotype drawing with the means of anthropometric values. RESULTS: The data were collected from 224 subjects, whose BMI(kg/m2) and WHR were 22.81+/-2.96 and 0.84+/-0.07(mean+/-SD). Spearmans correlation coefficients(rs) of somatotype drawing were 0.77 with BMI, 0.62 with waist circumference, 0.61 with weight and hip circumference, 0.40 with WHR that remained statistically significant after adjusting age, sex, education level, monthly income and job. And, the grades of somatotype drawing were grouped as 1, 2, 3-4, 5-6, 7 by BMI and hip circumference, 1, 2-4, 5, 6, 7 by waist circumference(ANOVA and Duncans method). CONCLUSIONS: Somatotype drawing has a good correlations with BMI, weight, waist and hip circumference. But it is not applicable to assess WHR because of its relatively lower correlation.
Education ; Hip ; Obesity ; Somatotypes* ; Waist Circumference

OBJECTIVES: 'High-normal blood pressure' is a factor influencing decision to initiate targeted intensive intervention strategy in westernized populations. JNC-VI offered the vigorous lifestyle modification for persons with 'high-normal blood pressure', who could be early detected. As a hypertension seems to be the result of multiple genetic factors operating in concert with associated environmental factors, it will be necessary to identify the high-normal blood pressure as a risk factor of hypertension for applying primary prevention strategy in Korean people. METHODS: Although cohort study design might be adequate to recruit incidence cases, to keep time sequence of events, and to prevent information bias, nested case-control study was chosen for avoiding measurement errors because hypertension is a benign disease. Source population was the 'Seoul Cohort' participants and follow-up was done by using Korea Medical Insurance Corporation's database on the utilization of health services from 1Jan93 to 30Jun97. Incidence cases were ascertained through the chart review, telephone contacts, and direct blood pressure measurements. Controls included the pairing of 4 individuals to each case on the basis of age. RESULTS: As 75 % of 247 incident cases had high-normal blood pressure, the crude odds ratio for hypertension was 2.04 (95% CI 1.47-2.83). Another statistically significant risk factors of hypertension were body mass index, dietary fiber, alcohol consumption, weekly activity and history of quitting smoking. The multivariate odds ratio of high-normal blood pressure adjusted for all risk factors was 1.84 (95 % CI 1.31-2.56). Among high-normal blood pressure group, body mass index, weekly ethanol amounts, weekly physical activity, and dietary fiber except history of quitting smoking were still risk factors of hypertension. CONCLUSION: 'High-normal blood pressure' is a risk factor for hypertension in Korean middle-aged men, which represents that the vigorous lifestyle modification for persons with 'high-normal blood pressure' is need.
Alcohol Drinking ; Bias (Epidemiology) ; Blood Pressure* ; Body Mass Index ; Case-Control Studies* ; Cohort Studies ; Dietary Fiber ; Ethanol ; Follow-Up Studies ; Health Services ; Humans ; Hypertension* ; Incidence ; Insurance ; Korea ; Life Style ; Male ; Motor Activity ; Odds Ratio ; Primary Prevention ; Risk Factors* ; Smoke ; Smoking ; Telephone

While Korea had the highest rate of increase in per capita health expenditures from 1997 to 2007 among The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, it is necessary in all countries to establish sustainable health care systems that efficiently use the existing effective treatment methods. For dealing with the overwhelming health care crisis, the European Union and the United States (US) have launched Health Technology Assessment (HTA) and Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER) programs, respectively. Further, the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research in US has considered the development of the CER data infrastructure to be the primary investment needed in order to reform the national health care system. The main reason is that investment in data infrastructure can potentially generate significant additional investment in CER. In addition, the Council stressed the need for coordination between CER and health information technology through a distributed network of electronic health records. These directions and decisions on driving CER in the US may provide an invaluable lesson on solving some healthcare problems in Korea. However, barriers to the potential contribution of the existing databases to CER must be overcome, including interoperability, privacy protection and confidentiality, and active participation of the holders of the related databases.
Biomedical Technology ; Comparative Effectiveness Research ; Confidentiality ; Delivery of Health Care* ; Electronic Health Records ; European Union ; Health Expenditures ; Investments ; Korea ; Medical Informatics ; Medical Record Linkage ; Medical Records Systems, Computerized ; Privacy ; United States

No abstract available.
Adult ; Carcinogens/toxicity ; Environmental Exposure ; Genome, Human/radiation effects ; Humans ; Neoplasms, Radiation-Induced/epidemiology/etiology/*genetics ; *Nuclear Power Plants ; Republic of Korea/epidemiology ; Thyroid Neoplasms/epidemiology/etiology/*genetics