Background: The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors affecting the healthy living practice rate such as non-smoking, moderate drinking, walking, and low-salt diet by elementary municipality (so called, ‘si-gun-hu’). Methods: The 2016 Korean Community Health Survey was used for the analysis. The theoretical model is founded upon the Anderson model, and both the multiple linear regression analysis and the beta regression analysis was performed for estimation. Results: As a result of the beta regression analysis, healthy living practice rate was found to be significantly higher in the areas with a less number of cigarette retailers, participating in healthy city projects, a low proportion of people who perceive their body type as obesity, a higher proportion of women, and a lower proportion of spouses. Conclusion In order to improve healthy living practices, the regulations on health risk businesses, the spread of Healthy City project, and policy efforts awaring obesity are recommended.

Background: Immunohistochemistry (IHC) has played an essential role in the diagnosis of hematolymphoid neoplasms. However, IHC interpretations can be challenging in daily practice, and exponentially expanding volumes of IHC data are making the task increasingly difficult. We therefore developed a machine-learning expert-supporting system for diagnosing lymphoid neoplasms. Methods: A probabilistic decision-tree algorithm based on the Bayesian theorem was used to develop mobile application software for iOS and Android platforms. We tested the software with real data from 602 training and 392 validation cases of lymphoid neoplasms and compared the precision hit rates between the training and validation datasets. Results: IHC expression data for 150 lymphoid neoplasms and 584 antibodies was gathered. The precision hit rates of 94.7% in the training data and 95.7% in the validation data for lymphomas were not statistically significant. Results in most B-cell lymphomas were excellent, and generally equivalent performance was seen in T-cell lymphomas. The primary reasons for lack of precision were atypical IHC profiles for certain cases (e.g., CD15-negative Hodgkin lymphoma), a lack of disease-specific markers, and overlapping IHC profiles of similar diseases. Conclusions Application of the machine-learning algorithm to diagnosis precision produced acceptable hit rates in training and validation datasets. Because of the lack of origin- or disease- specific markers in differential diagnosis, contextual information such as clinical and histological features should be taken into account to make proper use of this system in the pathologic decision-making process.

BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study is to measure the Korean health literacy level and to analyse its gaps according to the factors of socioeconomic and health status and health behaviors. Based on this, policy implications were reviewed to improve the understandability on health information and to reduce the gap among socioeconomic groups. METHODS: HLS-EU-Q47, a tool developed by the European Health Literacy Project, was used to conduct a face-to-face interview survey on the health literacy for the samples from general population. RESULTS: The public general health literacy (HL) index was 34.5 out of 50. HL is consisted of three sub-dimensions: healthcare (HC-HL), disease prevention (DP-HL), and health promotion (HP-HL). And a HL analysis found scores of 34.7 points for HC-HL, 35.4 points for DP-HL, and 33.3 points for HP-HL. The level of all HL was different according to socioeconomic characteristics and health behavior. CONCLUSION: Based on the results of this study, more research activities on health-related literacy need to be conducted, and monitoring system on the HL level needs to be developed and implemented. In addition, a program to improve HL levels needs to be developed in order to strengthen the basis for a more sustainable healthcare system as an agenda with national health policy priority.
Consumer Health Information ; Delivery of Health Care ; Health Behavior ; Health Literacy ; Health Policy ; Health Promotion ; Literacy

BACKGROUND: The aims of this national survey were to determine the views of Korean people regarding the specialty of anesthesiology and the role of anesthesiologists and to consider the ways in which individual anesthesiologists and the Korean Society of Anesthesiologists inform the public. METHODS: This off-line national survey was conducted by a professional research organization to obtain exact and reliable data. The questionnaire included structured questions to identify perceptions of the specialty of anesthesiology and the role of anesthesiologists inside and outside the operating room, people's desire for explanation of anesthesia by anesthesiologists, and their opinion about the best way to raise awareness about anesthesia and anesthesiologists. RESULTS: Of the respondents, 25.2% did not know that anesthesiologists are in charge of anesthesia during surgery. Furthermore, even respondents who knew that had very little knowledge of anesthesiologists' actual roles inside and outside the operating room. Respondents wanted their anesthesiologist to inform them about their anesthesia. CONCLUSIONS: The public's awareness regarding the role of anesthesiologists seems to be inadequate. To improve this awareness, in hospitals, each anesthesiologist should provide patients with more exact and detailed information. Simultaneously, the National Society of Anesthesiology should provide systematic information reflecting the public's thoughts.
Anesthesia ; Anesthesiology* ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Humans ; Operating Rooms ; Physician's Role ; Public Opinion

With the rapid aging of the population, Korea introduced public long-term care insurance for older people in 2008. The long-term care insurance was designed as a separate scheme from the national health insurance, with eligibility qualifications and the certification process based on functional disability, benefits and coverage of community-based and institutional care, and a financing structure through multi-party contributions. Delivering appropriate health services to long-term care beneficiaries who manifest a high prevalence of comorbid chronic conditions with rising healthcare costs, however, presents a particular challenge. The lack of coordination between the health and long-term care sectors, limited consideration of physicians' assessments in the certification process, inadequate provision of health services in long-term care facilities, and overlapping and inefficient use of care resources act as barriers to providing comprehensive healthcare for older beneficiaries. Through active participation in the long-term care system, health professionals can help older patients navigate through the complex long-term care terrain to obtain quality healthcare.
Aged ; Aged, 80 and over ; Delivery of Health Care/*economics ; Disability Evaluation ; Humans ; Insurance, Long-Term Care/*economics ; Middle Aged ; National Health Programs/economics

A 36-year-old male patient with no remarkable medical history was admitted to our hospital for a health check up. On chest radiography, bilateral aortic notches at the level of aortic arch were shown suggesting aortic arch anomaly without any clinical symptoms. Two aortic arches were almost same-in-size on suprasternal view of transthoracic echocardiography. In addition, multidetector computed tomography showed balanced type double aortic arch forming a complete vascular ring which encircled the trachea and esophagus. The trachea was slightly compressed by the vascular ring whereas the esophagus was intact. Nevertheless, the pulmonary function test was normal. The patient was discharged from hospital with instructions for periodic follow-up.
Adult ; Aorta, Thoracic ; Echocardiography ; Esophagus ; Follow-Up Studies ; Humans ; Male ; Multidetector Computed Tomography ; Respiratory Function Tests ; Thorax ; Trachea

Appendiceal intussusception is a rare disease entity and appendiceal mucocele is one of the causes of this disease. Although computed tomography, ultrasonography, barium enema and colonoscopy can be performed to make a preoperative diagnosis, only a few cases of appendiceal mucocele-induced intussusception have been precisely diagnosed by these diaggnostic tools. Most of all, few such cases have been confirmed by colonoscopic examination. Colonoscopic examination has a supplementary role for the differential diagnosis of acute or chronic appendicitis, tumor or abscess in the ascending colon and cecum that is caused by appendiceal intussusception. We report here on a case of intussusception that was caused by an appendiceal mucocele, and this showed a target appearing structure in the hepatic flexure and a cystic mass inside the intussusceptive lumen on abdominal CT, and a huge mass was discovered on the colonoscopic examination.
Abscess ; Appendicitis ; Appendix ; Barium ; Cecum ; Colon, Ascending ; Colonoscopy ; Diagnosis, Differential ; Enema ; Intussusception ; Mucocele ; Rare Diseases

Salmonella usually invades the Peyer's patch of the terminal ileum or ascending colon. A 55-year old female was referred to our hospital for general weakness and sustained fever. On the abdominal contrast computed tomography (CT) scan, we found symmetric circular hypertrophy of the intestinal wall and multiple hypertrophied lymph nodes in the terminal ileum. The positron emission tomography computed tomography (PET-CT) scan showed skipped areas of wall thickening and intense fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) uptake in the terminal ileum and the ileocecal valve with adjacent lymphadenopathies. On the colonoscopy, multiple mass forming variable-sized ulcers on the terminal ileum were found, so a biopsy specimen and the colonic luminal fluid were obtained, and we made a diagnosis of lymphoma. However, the blood and colonic luminal fluid culture for Salmonella paratyphi-A was reported as positive, and therefore we corrected the diagnosis to Salmonella infection. We report here on a case of Salmonella infection in the terminal ileum, which looked like malignant lymphoma on the baseline radiologic image studies, including the CT and PET-CT.
Biopsy ; Colon ; Colon, Ascending ; Colonoscopy ; Female ; Fever ; Humans ; Hypertrophy ; Ileocecal Valve ; Ileum ; Lymph Nodes ; Lymphoma ; Phenobarbital ; Positron-Emission Tomography ; Salmonella ; Salmonella Infections ; Ulcer

OBJECTIVES: This prospective study was performed to investigate the association between occupational stress and the development of cerebrovascular and cardiovascular diseases. METHODS: A total of 8,429 employees were selected from a nationwide sample, proportional to both the Korean Standard Industrial Classification and the Korean Standard Occupational Classification. A structured self-reported questionnaire was used to access the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, health behavior and work related characteristics. 43-items of the full version of Korean Occupational Stress Scale (KOSS) were used to access the participants occupational stress. New cases of hospitalization due to cerebrovascular and cardiovascular diseases were evaluated using medical utilization files received from the National Health Insurance Corporation for the period of March 2004 to December 2005. A logistic regression analysis was performed to investigate the association between occupational stress and cerebrovascular and cardiovascular diseases. RESULTS: 43 new cases of hospitalization due to cerebrovascular and cardiovascular diseases were found. According to the results of the logistic regression analysis, job stressors were related with circulatory diseases after adjustment for gender, age, number of workers, employment type, shift work, smoking, alcohol intake, and regular exercise. Of the 8 subscales, insufficient job control (Adj. RR 2.802; 95% CI 1.038-7.564) and occupational climate (Adj. RR 2.365; 95% CI 1.087~5.143) were significantly associated with cerebrovascular and cardiovascular diseases. However, no significant relationships were found between the 6 KOSS subscales and cerebrovascular and cardiovascular diseases. CONCLUSIONS: Despite the short-term follow-up of about two years, the KOSS subscales of insufficient job control and occupational climate were significantly associated with cerebrovascular and cardiovascular diseases.
Cardiovascular Diseases* ; Classification ; Climate ; Employment ; Follow-Up Studies ; Health Behavior ; Hospitalization ; Logistic Models ; National Health Programs ; Prospective Studies ; Questionnaires ; Smoke ; Smoking

Hospitals are confronting in the transforming or reforming period to cope with the rapid social and environmental changes worldwide. By the researches in the history of Korean health, we could understand the context of the introduction of Western medicine and institutions to Korea. However there have been few studies on the historical review of hospitals in relations to their roles in the modern medicineThis article is to review the issues around the rise of modern hospitals in Korean history of health affairs. The introduction of Western medicine to Korea was on the road with the establishment of Kwanghyewon, the Royal Hospital, which was possible due to favorable conditions under the Korean socio-political background for the emerging and accepting the entirely new medical system. And also the emergence of modern hospitals had transformed the Korean traditional health system from the fundamentals through the corruption of the old dynasty to nowadays. Most national health affairs including medical services, prevention of diseases, health promotion, and the training of health personnels have performed along with the development of modern hospitals, which have the roots in the period after the end of 19th century. Thus the Korean history of health care around the end of 19th century and the beginning of 20th century could be defined as the period of the emergence of modern hospitals. The hospitals also have played core roles in establishing the Korean modern health system and culture. Compared to the cases of Western countries, Korean modern hospitals were emerged with the exogenous factors in the turbulence of political and cultural changes in the world system. In sum, Korean modern hospitals in the period of late Chosun have the great meaning in that they are the beginning point to shape the current Korean health care system and the driving forces or carriers of this new system.
English Abstract ; History of Medicine, 19th Cent. ; History of Medicine, 20th Cent. ; History of Medicine, 21st Cent. ; Hospitals/*history ; Korea ; *Medicine ; Western World/*history