Perinatal period, which is a series of consecutive periods of pregnancy, delivery, birth and neonatal life, gives many important information about national public health statistics and data. It is fundamental and important in the epidemiological statistics to understand clearly the definitions of terminology in perinatal epidemiology, and to group diseases and its characteristics, prognosis and mortality according to the definitions. Therefore, the present review article should be helpful in understanding the terms of perinatal epidemiology based on the international criteria and also to understand the uniformity of the international criteria in the grouping the periods when making the statistic products. By reviewing and presenting the perinatalogic definitions based on criteria of 10th revision of International Statistical Classification of Disease (ICD) and Related Health Problems (WHO), National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) of Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Statistics Korea, and Statistics of Japan Ministry of Health Labour, and Welfare. And also by understanding the grouping in statistics, we intended to propose the uniformity of the statistics in the perinatal epidemiologic papers in Korea.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S.) ; Japan ; Korea ; National Center for Health Statistics (U.S.) ; Parturition ; Perinatology ; Pregnancy ; Prognosis ; Public Health ; Vital Statistics

OBJECTIVES: This study was designed to compare the data from the emergency department syndromic surveillance system of Korea in detection and reporting of acute diarrheal syndrome (mass type) with the data from the Korea Food and Drug Administration. And to offer fundamental materials for making improvements in current surveillance system was our purpose. METHODS: A study was conducted by reviewing the number of cases reported as acute diarrheal syndrome (mass type) from the Korean Center for Disease Control and Prevention between June, 2002 and July, 2008. And the data were compared with the number of mass food poisoning cases during the same period, reported from the Korea Food and Drug Administration. The difference between two groups was measured and their transitions were compared. RESULTS: The emergency department syndromic surveillance system's reports of the numbers of acute diarrheal syndrome (mass type) cases were different from the transition of mass food poisonings, reported by the Korea Food and Drug Administration. Their reports were not accurate and they could not follow the trends of increase in mass food poisonings since 2002. CONCLUSIONS: Current problems in the emergency department syndromic surveillance system in Korea are mostly related to inaccuracies of daily data reporting system. Manual data input by the reporters could play a big role in such inaccuracies. There need to be improvements in the ways of reporting data, such as automated information transport system linking electronic medical record.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S.) ; Diarrhea ; Electronic Health Records ; Emergencies ; Foodborne Diseases ; Korea ; Research Design ; United States Food and Drug Administration

The need for evidence-based decision making in immunization programs has increased due to the presence of multiple health priorities, limited human resources, expensive vaccines, and limited funds. Countries should establish a group of national experts to advise their Ministries of Health. So far, many nations have formed their own National Immunization Technical Advisory Groups (NITAGs). In the Republic of Korea, the Korea Expert Committee on Immunization Practices (KECIP), established by law in the early 1990s, has made many important technical recommendations to contribute to the decline in vaccine preventable diseases and currently functions as a NITAG. It includes 13 core members and 2 non-core members, including a chairperson. Core members usually come from affiliated organizations in internal medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics, microbiology, preventive medicine, nursing and a representative from a consumer group, all of whom serve two year terms. Non-core members comprise two government officials belonging to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) and the Korea Food and Drug Administration. Meetings are held as needed, but at least twice a year, and sub-committees are formed as a resource for gathering, analyzing, and preparing information for the KECIP meetings. Once the sub-committees or the KCDC review the available data, the KECIP members discuss each issue in depth and develop recommendations, usually by a consensus in the meeting. The KECIP publishes national guidelines and immunization schedules that are updated regularly. KECIP's role is essentially consultative and the implementation of their recommendations may depend on the budget or current laws.
Budgets ; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S.) ; Consensus ; Decision Making ; Financial Management ; Health Priorities ; Humans ; Immunization ; Immunization Programs ; Immunization Schedule ; Internal Medicine ; Jurisprudence ; Korea ; Obstetrics ; Occupational Groups ; Pediatrics ; Policy Making ; Preventive Medicine ; Republic of Korea ; United States Food and Drug Administration ; Vaccines

A Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) - coronavirus (CoV) cluster that attacked Korea in May 2015 revealed several weaknesses in Korea's health care system in the face of the crisis of an emerging infectious disease and its public health implications. This experience has shown that is necessary to prepare comprehensive countermeasures through the cooperation of civil and public agencies to prevent a second or even third MERS outbreak and to control future crises of infectious disease and public health. The MERS Policy Committee of the Korean Medical Association has thus proposed a master plan for reform of the national infectious disease prevention and management system to prepare a new framework for national infectious disease prevention and control. The specific targets of the master plan are improvement of the system of usage of medical services and of the medical culture among national health insurance subscribers, improvement of the emergency room management system to prevent the spread of infectious disease, the establishment of a support system to promote effective voluntary infectious disease prevention activities among medical institutions, the building of a public health crisis communication system in collaboration with medical organizations, the establishment of an independent Ministry of Health and capacity building of the Korea Centers for Disease Control (KCDC), the securing of an advanced research and development system in the field of prevention and control of infectious disease, and the capacity building of professional epidemiologists and personnel needed to prevent and control infectious disease. The five core strategies of the master plan have been planned by medical experts in this order of priority: the reform of the healthcare delivery system, the independence of the Ministry of Health and capacity building of the KCDC, fundraising for a public infection management fund, enforcement of medical organization infection control, and improvement of the emergency room management system.
Capacity Building ; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S.) ; Communicable Diseases* ; Communicable Diseases, Emerging ; Cooperative Behavior ; Coronavirus ; Coronavirus Infections ; Delivery of Health Care ; Emergency Service, Hospital ; Financial Management ; Infection Control ; Korea* ; Middle East ; National Health Programs ; Public Health

Since May 20, 2015, when the first case of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) in South Korea was confirmed, the cluster case in South Korea has grown to become the largest observed case following Saudi Arabia within the span of one month. Akin to what was observed in the Middle East, confirmed cases were infected through nosocomial transmission where the cluster is largely limited to patients, healthcare workers, and visitors to patients in healthcare facilities with confirmed cases. A major difference from the outbreaks in the Arabian Peninsula has been the large number of tertiary transmission cases in South Korea, which had reached forty cases by June 12. This observation may suggest that despite the lack of genetic mutation of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) in South Korea, the virus may be behaving differently from that of the Middle East. The higher infectiousness of 'super-spreaders' in South Korea also suggests that this assertion should be under further investigation. Suggestions of inadequate triage in emergency rooms, particularly at Samsung Medical Center which accounts for the most nosocomial infection with 60 cases, have been made by several organizations as the basis for this rapid spread. This, however, does not account for the fact that triage was impossible to implement, since the presence of MERS-CoV in South Korea was unknown during the index patient's stay at the healthcare facilities. This paper aims to identify the key factors in the amplified spread of MERS-CoV in South Korea. The first is the initial failure to confirm diagnosis promptly and to isolate the index case after confirmation of MERS in hospital and the lack of detail in tracking potential exposures in the community of the index case before isolation. The second is the early inadequate measures the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention took in categorizing close contacts. Due to inconsistencies in defining what constitutes close contact, a number of cases were neglected from quarantine and were not subjected to investigation. Finally, confirmed or potential MERS patients were admitted for treatment and observation at medical facilities without adequate disease control measures or rooms, such as ventilated single rooms or airborne precaution rooms. Due to the rigid position that MERS-CoV cannot be transmitted via airborne means, infection control measures has so far neglected evidence that smaller droplets (aerosol) containing the virus can act similar to airborne agents, which may account for the widespread and rapid transmission in a emergency room and a patient's room in hospital. Although the South Korean government expects newly confirmed cases to abate in the coming few weeks, without stringent implementation of clearly defined guidelines to control further transmissions, the cessation of the current trend may continue for an extended period. Additionally, due to the high infection rate of super-spreaders in South Korea, efforts to screen for potential super-spreaders and a thorough investigation of those confirmed to be super-spreaders should be done to quickly identify source of infection, to potentially lower the number of secondary, tertiary transmissions and prevent possible quaternary transmissions.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S.) ; Communicable Diseases ; Coronavirus* ; Cross Infection ; Delivery of Health Care ; Diagnosis ; Disease Outbreaks ; Emergency Service, Hospital ; Epidemiology ; Humans ; Infection Control ; Korea ; Middle East* ; Public Health* ; Quarantine ; Saudi Arabia ; Temefos ; Triage ; Visitors to Patients

BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study is to analyze the effect of impartiality in providing public health services on subjective health happiness and the mediated effects of public health service quality. Based on this, this study intends to present policy implications to improve public health services. METHODS: The research method is multiple linear regression analysis. The analysis of the mediating effects is performed by Baron & Kenny's test, Sobel-Goodman's test, and Bootstrap. RESULTS: The impartiality of public health services and the quality of public health services are shown to have a statistically significant effect on subjective health happiness. Quality of public health service appears to be mediating the relationship between impartiality in providing public health care and subjective health happiness. CONCLUSION: To promote people's subjective health happiness, it is necessary to secure impartiality in providing public health services in the first place and improve the quality of public health services.
Diagnostic Self Evaluation ; Happiness ; Linear Models ; Methods ; Negotiating ; Public Health ; United States Public Health Service

Plagiarism, the use of text and ideas from published works without proper permission or citation, is difficult to detect since the whole text should be searched and compared to literature databases. Nevertheless, this process has become simpler with the advent of web-based technologies and more powerful search tools. Recently, a case of plagiarism was detected in an invited manuscript submitted to the Journal of the Korean Medical Association. In the withdrawn manuscript, there were figures and figure legends copied from other papers with neither permission nor citation. Only the citation is enough to use content, figures, or tables from other papers when the original journal is open access with Creative Commons License. Otherwise, to use such data, it is essential to obtain permission from that paper's journal publisher. If plagiarism is detected after publication, the author will face harsh disciplinary action before the office of research integrity in his or her institute. Also, the paper may be retracted by the editor. This is the first time that Editorial Board has detected plagiarism before publication. Screening for plagiarism and other ethical violations will continue so that we can pursue the status of the representative journal of Korean physicians and develop a positive reputation for Korean science internationally by maintaining the utmost quality and integrity in our publications.
Coat Protein Complex I ; Licensure ; Mass Screening ; Plagiarism ; Publications ; United States Office of Research Integrity

OBJECTIVES: While there have recently been efforts to improve public health service at a governmental level, there is actually insufficient research on awareness of the roles related to public health service among hospital employees. This study examined role perception and function performance related to public health service among the medical staff in a national hospital. METHODS: 15% were randomly sampled from each type of occupation among the medical staff in a national university hospital, a survey was conducted in 323 persons, and there were a total of 265 participants (80.2%): 103 doctors(38.9%), 98 nurses (37.0%), and 64 others (24.1%). RESULTS: The hospital employees had insufficient awareness of their roles as public health service providers in terms of six required items for public health service: 1) services for supporting establishment, implementation, and assessment of public health service policies, 2) participation in the health service activities and support services by central or local governments, 3) technological support and educational services for private health service institutions, 4) health service for unprivileged brackets, 5) health service that requires association with other areas dealing with geriatric, disabled, and mentally-disordered people, and 6) health service for children and mothers. CONCLUSIONS: In general, since the hospital employees had insufficient awareness of their roles and responsibilities as public health service providers, it is necessary to secure manpower exclusively in charge of public health service and provide education about strategic public health service.
Child ; Cognition ; Fees and Charges ; Health Services ; Humans ; Medical Staff ; Occupations ; Public Health ; United States Public Health Service

BACKGROUND: The number and proportion of live-alone elders in Korea have been increasing dramatically. We tried to identify the physical health status of live-alone elders in community and their needs for public health service in order to provide basic data for effective public health service to promote health and quality of life. METHODS: The subjects for this study were 38 nurses who provide visit-nursing service to live-alone elders in Seoul and Kyunggi Province. Data were collected by semi-structured questionnaires. RESULTS: The half of live-alone elders had disease, but only half of them took appropriate treatment. Barrier to treatment were difficulty to access to medical center, immobility, lack of drive and also poor insight. CONCLUSION: To solve the problems related to the elderly living alone in community, the instillation of public health policy that encompass professional medical service and comprehensive team approach are needed.
Aged ; Gyeonggi-do ; Humans ; Korea ; Public Health* ; Quality of Life ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Seoul ; United States Public Health Service*

PURPOSE: As a part of analysis of home-based cancer patients management of public health centers, regional cancer center, and hospice institution in Jeju, this study was undertaken to establish their role. METHODS: We investigated current status of hospice palliative care, especially home-based cancer patients management and summary demand of public health centers. RESULTS: Services provided through the home-based cancer patients management project included physical, emotional, spiritual and education/informative services, even though there was little difference between them. The result showed that in the view of patients there was little relationship between public health centers, regional cancer center and hospice palliative institution. CONCLUSION: The relationship between home-based cancer patients management and institutions should be reinforced. Patients in acute state and difficulty care of patients should be referred to regional cancer center whereas maintenance state of patients should be referred to public health center.
Cancer Care Facilities ; Home Care Services, Hospital-Based ; Hospices ; Humans ; Palliative Care ; Public Health ; United States Public Health Service