Effects of the Combination of Marital Status and Household Type on Self-Rated Health among Korean Women / 보건행정학회지

Background@#Self-rated health of women according to marital status and household type has rarely been considered. This study determined the differences in the self-rated health of women according to marital status and household type. @*Methods@#Using cross-sectional data from the seventh Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, we included 9,990 women aged above 19 years. Multiple logistic regression was used to examine the relationships between self-rated health, marital status, and household type. @*Results@#Overall, 74.5% of the women reported poor self-rated health. Regarding marital status and household type, one-person households and unmarried women had a higher risk of poor self-rated health (odds ratio [OR], 1.45; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.03–2.05), while multi-person households and no-spouse women had a lower risk of poor self-rated health (OR, 0.69; 95% CI, 0.58– 0.83). Furthermore, women who are one-person households and unmarried had a higher risk of poor self-rated health in those who had college or higher educational level (OR, 1.98; 95% CI, 1.25–3.13). @*Conclusion@#Self-rated health among women was associated with marital status and household type. Future studies are required to generalize these findings by considering various household compositions to improve women’s self-rated health status.

Socioeconomic Status and Successful Delivery after an Infertility Diagnosis:a Nationwide Health Insurance Cohort Study in Korea Conducted from 2005to 2013

Background@#The global disease burden of infertility is rising and accessibility to infertility treatments and assisted reproduction is a challenging issue. Therefore, we investigated characteristics of successful delivery after an infertility diagnosis among infertile women. @*Methods@#We designed a retrospective cohort study with the main outcome measure of a delivery medical record after the initial diagnosis of infertility. A total of 10,108 women patients who were diagnosed with infertility between 2005 to 2013 in the National Health Insurance Cooperation Cohort Database of Korea were enrolled. The adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for subsequent delivery were estimated by applying a Cox proportional-hazard regression model. @*Results@#Approximately 55% of infertile women who reported infertility had a delivery eventually. Infertile women who are aged between 30 to 39 (HR, 0.80; 95% CI, 0.75–0.84), in low income level (HR, 0.77; 95% CI, 0.71–0.84), or diagnosed with diabetes (HR, 0.76; 95% CI, 0.60–0.96) were less likely to report a delivery. @*Conclusion@#These findings highlight demographic, socioeconomic, and medical characteristics of reporting a consequent delivery. Although many previous articles reported an association between socioeconomic status and receiving medical evaluation, there were few studies regarding successful delivery after an infertility diagnosis across socioeconomic status. Thus, the maintaining of support for low socioeconomic status infertile women and their family should be considered after the infertility diagnosis in aspects of financial and social approaches.

The Association between Adequate Prenatal Care and Severe Maternal Morbidity: A Population-based Cohort Study

PURPOSE: This study identified the relationship between adequate prenatal care and severe maternal morbidity among delivered women. METHODS: Data were extracted from the Korean National Health Insurance Service-National Sample Cohort for 91,767 cases of delivery that were delivered during 2003~2013. Severe maternal morbidity status was determined using the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's algorithm including the diagnosis and procedure code during delivery and postpartum hospitalization. A generalized estimating equation (GEE) model with log link was performed for the relationship with severe maternal morbidity and women's factors to estimate adjusted relative risk. RESULTS: Of the 91,767 delivery cases, 2,248 (2.45%) had severe maternal morbidity. In the GEE model, severe maternal morbidity was higher in women who had inadequate prenatal care than in those who had adequate prenatal care (relative risk (RR) 1.39, 95% CI 1.11~1.75, p-value 0.0045). For maternal age, women who delivered at extremely young or old ages had high risks of severe maternal morbidity, which showed a U-shaped distribution through the whole age range. Women who had the lowest level of income, who had cesarean section delivery, who were nulliparous, who had twins or more than triplet births had high risks of severe maternal morbidity. CONCLUSION: Inadequate prenatal care delivery was associated with the occurrence of severe maternal morbidity. Therefore, policy makers should consider making quality indicators for early, timely, and sufficient visits during pregnancy and should monitor adequacy of prenatal care to prevent severe maternal morbidity.

The Association between Inappropriate Weight Control Behaviors and Suicide Ideation and Attempt among Korean Adolescents

Suicide is a leading cause of death among adolescents globally, and body weight is also a recognized reason for adolescent suicide. Therefore, we investigated the association between weight control behaviors (WCB) and suicide ideation and attempt, focusing on inappropriate weight control measures. We used data from the 2014 Korea Youth Risk Behavior Web-based Survey, representing a total of 35,224 boys and 34,361 girls aged 12 to 18 years. Adolescents were classified into groups based on WCB: appropriate WCB, inappropriate WCB, and no WCB. We performed logistic regression models to examine associations between WCB and suicide ideation and attempt, controlling for covariates. Both boys and girls with inappropriate WCB were more likely to report suicide ideation and attempt. Underweight and normal weight boys with inappropriate WCB were more likely to think or attempt suicide, and underweight girls with inappropriate WCB were also more likely to attempt suicide. Among five common WCB combinations, the combination of "regular exercise, fasting, eating less" was highly associated with suicide ideation and attempt. We confirmed that inappropriate WCB is associated with suicide ideation and attempt among Korean adolescents. Given the high incidence rate of suicide among adolescents and the adverse effect of inappropriate WCB, encouraging adolescents to control their weight in healthy ways is imperative.

Protective effects of a transgenic carrot vaccine on piglet diarrhea / 대한수의학회지

The study evaluated whether a transgenic carrot vaccine could induce a K88-specific immune response in sows and whether the resultant maternal antibody could protect piglets against enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) K88ac infection. Sows (n = 15) selected randomly from a farm in Korea were assigned to three groups (n = 5 per group: control [untreated]), group A (orally inoculated with a non-transgenic and transgenic carrot vaccines at 2 and 4 weeks ante partum, respectively), and group B (conventionally vaccinated according to the manufacturer's instructions). After 7 days of lactation, 5 piglets selected randomly from each group were challenged with 1 x 1010 colony forming units/mL ETEC K88ac. Group C had the lowest mean fecal consistency score on post-challenge days 1 and 7. Histiologically, On post-challenge day 7, group C showed an increased duodenum and ileum villus:crypt ratio, compared to group A in the duodenum, with group B displaying the highest ratio. Groups B and C had more increased villus width than group A in the jejunum. Group C displayed the greatest increase in villus width in the ileum. The colostrums and serum from groups B and C displayed higher concentrations of IgA and IgG against ETEC K88, compared to group A. Based on the results, it was concluded that the transgenic carrot vaccine in sow per oral may have an effect on preventing piglet diarrhea as good as commercial recombinant vaccine.

Changes of Serum IgM, IgG in Pig's Xenograft Perfusion and Immunofluorescence Changes of the Deposition of IgM, IgG in the Xenograft in Dogs / 대한흉부외과학회지

BACKGROUND: Lung transplantation is the definitive therapy for end stage lung disorders. The success of allogenic lung transplantation has led to an increasing shortage of donor lungs from humans, including cadavers, and attention has now turned to transplantation of lungs from other species. However, there are many biological hurdles when using organs from other species because of hyperacute rejection after discordant xenotransplantation. MATERIAL AND METHOD: Pigs (n=6, weighing 20~30 kg each) for the donors and mongrel dogs (n=6, weighing 20~28 kg each) for the recipients were used in this experiment. The left kidney of a pig was perfused to a mongrel dog for 30 minutes through the femoral artery and vein of the dog, and the right kidney was perfused for 30 minutes sequentially. Then, both lungs of the pig were perfused to the dog through the pulmonary artery and left atrium with using the same time intervals. The levels of IgM and IgG were measured from the blood and specimens of the kidney and lung. RESULT:The average levels of serum IgM gradually decreased after the perfusion, but the average levels of serum IgG did not change from before to after perfusion. The immunohistochemical findings revealed decreased deposition of IgG and IgM after the perfusion. CONCLUSION: We conclude that the levels of the serum natural antibodies would be decreased with pre-transplantation xenograft perfusion in the recipient and the occurrence rate of hyperacute rejection after transplantation would be decreased.