Social class inequalities in tooth-brushing time: The role of material, behavioral, psychosocial, and workplace environmental factors among the South Korean population

Background: Inequality in health should be prevented. The aims of this study were to assess inequalities prevalent in tooth-brushing after lunch (TAL) and in tooth-brushing before sleep (TBS) among Koreans using the NMSC indicator and to assess the role of material, health behavioral, psychosocial, and workplace environmental (WPE) determinants in associating the indicator with tooth brushing activities. Methods: The data were from the 4th KNHANES with 6,710 workers and entrepreneurs from 19 to 54 year old, who were grouped into 12 social class positions. TAL and TBS were the outcomes. Data analysis was performed using a logistic regression sequence. The results were reported as OR and 95% CI. Results: The proportion of owner groups was higher for TBS than for TAL, whereas that of worker groups was higher for TAL than for TBS. The highest probability was shown by expert workers (TAL) and capitalists (TBS) among various models. WPE factors had the highest explanatory power for both. Conclusions: Non-gradient social class disparities related to tooth brushing were recognized for the Korean adults. The behavior of brushing teeth at two different times revealed a different pattern of social inequality regarding oral health. Thus, workplace-based oral health promotion programs should be implemented

The Role of Gender Dynamics in the Relationship between Parental Maltreatment and Juvenile Theft in South Korea

Juvenile theft is the leading crime among adolescents in Korea and is a serious social concern. The present study is an examination of youth theft in the framework of general strain theory, which asserts that criminal behavior occurs as a response to various strains, such as parental abuse and neglect. To test the role of parent-youth gender dynamics in the relationship between parental strain and youth theft, the current study analyzed a community-based sample of youth offenders and non-offenders in Korea (N = 374) using multivariate logistic regression models with interaction terms. Paternal physical abuse and maternal neglect predicted greater youth involvement in theft behavior. Regarding parent-youth gender dynamics, there was no difference in the role of maternal or paternal maltreatment in predicting theft behavior in sons or daughters. The exception was fathers' neglect, in which daughters showed higher odds of theft engagement than did sons who experienced even greater paternal neglect. The findings underscored the distinct and detrimental role of parental maltreatment in adolescent theft. The results supported the need to reach out to parents in consideration of the youth's gender and provided important implications for guiding current social services in preventing juvenile theft in Korea

Validation of the South Korean Version of the Beliefs about Emotions Scale

Background Beliefs about the unacceptability of experiencing or expressing negative emotions can contribute to diverse psychological symptoms and associated with poor treatment outcomes and low treatment attempts. The Beliefs about Emotions Scale (BES) was developed to assess such beliefs based on the cognitive-behavioral models; however, no study has reported on the psychometric properties of the BES in Korea. The present study aimed to cross-culturally adapt and validate the BES for the Korean population (BES-K). Methods The BES-K was administered to 592 Korean adults (323 men and 269 women) aged 20–59 years. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis were used to assess the factor model of the scale. Pearson correlation coefficients were used to evaluate the relationships between the BES-K and other psychological measures. Results The result showed a two-factor model of the BES-K, with Factor 1 relating to Interpersonal and Factor 2 representing Intrapersonal aspects. The scale had significant yet moderately low correlations with measures of depression, anxiety, and difficulties in emotion regulation. Conclusion The BES-K is a useful instrument in evaluating the beliefs about emotions in the Korean population

Oral health inequality among Indonesian workers in South Korea: role of health insurance and discrimination factors

Abstract Background The health of migrant workers is becoming an important public health issue. Although there are an increasing number of migrant workers in Korea, the health status in migrant populations remains unknown. The aims of this study were (1) to evaluate the association between income and self-rated oral health (SROH), and (2) to assess the role of health insurance and self-perceived discrimination in the association between income and SROH among Indonesian migrant workers in Korea. Methods Information about self-reported income, SROH, coverage/utilization of health insurance (HI), living difficulties related to oral health (LDROH), oral health literacy (OHL), and discrimination were obtained from Indonesian migrant workers in Korea (n = 248). The main explanatory variable was income, and SROH was an outcome variable. Logistic regression analyses were performed controlling for age, gender, HI, LDROH, OHL, and discrimination. The paths from income to SROH were analyzed using the Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Model (PLS-SEM). Results Among Indonesian migrant workers, the lower income group had the highest probability of a poor SROH compared to the higher income group. The variables showing a high explanatory power were discrimination among the low income group and HI among the middle income group. In PLS-SEM, the variables such as HI, LDROH, OHL, and discrimination contributed 11% to explaining the association between income and SROH. Conclusion A monotonic gradient was revealed among migrant workers according to the association between income and SROH. Discrimination and HI contributed to oral health inequalities

Are occupational and environmental noises associated with periodontitis? Evidence from a Korean representative cross-sectional study

Background Evidences have shown that noise could be a risk factor for cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. Since periodontitis and CVD are characterized by inflammation, it is reasonable to doubt that occupational/environmental noise is a risk factor for periodontitis. The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between occupational/environmental noise and periodontitis in a nationally representative sample of Korean adults. Methods This cross-sectional study used data from the 7th Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. The study sample included 8327 adults aged 40 to 80 years old. Noise exposure and the duration of the exposure were assessed with self-report questionnaires. The dependent variable was periodontitis. Age, gender, place of residence, income, marital status, smoking, frequency of daily tooth brushing, recent dental checkup, and diabetes were included as covariates. Logistic regression analyses estimated the association between noise exposure and periodontitis. Results Those who were exposed to environmental noise during their lifetime had an increased prevalence of severe periodontitis (odds ratio [OR] 1.88; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.05 to 3.40), and this association was strengthened as the duration of the environmental noise exposure was longer (OR of > 120 months 2.35 and OR of ≤120 months 1.49). There was a combined relationship for severe periodontitis between occupational and environmental noise exposure (OR of both exposures 2.62, OR of occupational exposure only 1.12, and OR of environmental exposure only 1.57). Conclusion Our study shows that noise exposure is associated with periodontitis, and the association was higher in the synergism between occupational and environmental interaction

Transcending Chronic Illness and Disability: Virtue-Based Adaptation Model Perspective

The present study examined the replicability of Virtue-Based Adaptation Model (V-PAM). Traditional adaptation studies in the field of rehabilitation often focus on examining innate psychological disposition such as personality. In V-PAM; however, the emphasis is given to virtue, one’s pursuit of excellence and commitment after the onset of illness and disability. From this perspective, adaptation to illness and disability is viewed as a positive by-product of having endured adversities while transforming them into insightful opportunities for renewal. Thus, adaptation is not only affected by innate dispositions, but also it can be nurtured via the collaborative counseling process. Two hundred eight adults with illness and disability participated in this study to replicate the original V-PAM study. The results revealed that the main effect of virtue model in differentiating the individual’s level of adaptation is replicable. Implications of these findings for clinical work and virtue-based research are discussed

Validation of the Dimensions of Anger Reactions Scale (the DAR-5) in non-clinical South Korean adults

Background Posttraumatic anger is a commonly reported emotion among people who have experienced traumatic events. The current study aimed to demonstrate the reliability and validity of the South Korean version of the DAR-5 (DAR-5-K). The DAR-5 is a single scale with 5 items which measures posttraumatic anger. The DAR-5 is composed of five items that measure anger frequency, intensity, duration, aggression, and its interference with social relations. Methods Data were collected from 814 South Korean adults who had experienced traumatic events and participated in the study and analyzed via the combination of exploratory factor analysis (n = 405) and confirmatory factor analysis (n = 409). Results Results supported the one-factor structure, as reported in previous validation studies. The scale demonstrated robust internal reliability and concurrent validity with measures of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, depression, anxiety, and self-esteem. The DAR-5 cut-off score of 12 that was established in the original validation study successfully differentiated high from low scorers with regard to PTSD symptoms, depression, anxiety, and self-esteem. Conclusion The results confirm that the DAR-5-K is a brief and psychometrically robust measure of anger that can be used to examine South Korean adults who have experienced traumatic events

Dissociation Between the Growing Opioid Demands and Drug Policy Directions Among the U.S. Older Adults with Degenerative Joint Diseases

We aim to examine temporal trends of orthopedic operations and opioid-related hospital stays among seniors in the nation and states of Oregon and Washington where marijuana legalization was accepted earlier than any others. As aging society advances in the United States (U.S.), orthopedic operations and opioid-related hospital stays among seniors increase in the nation. A serial cross-sectional cohort study using the healthcare cost and utilization project fast stats from 2006 through 2015 measured annual rate per 100,000 populations of orthopedic operations by age groups (45–64 vs 65 and older) as well as annual rate per 100,000 populations of opioid-related hospital stays among 65 and older in the nation, Oregon and Washington states from 2008 through 2017. Orthopedic operations (knee arthroplasty, total or partial hip replacement, spinal fusion or laminectomy) and opioid-related hospital stays were measured. The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) was used to quantify temporal trends of orthopedic operations by age groups as well as opioid-related hospital stays and was tested by Rao–Scott correction of χ2 for categorical variables. The CAGR (4.06%) of orthopedic operations among age 65 and older increased (P...) (See full abstract in article

Do Response Selection Models Really Know What's Next? Utterance Manipulation Strategies for Multi-turn Response Selection

In this paper, we study the task of selecting the optimal response given a user and system utterance history in retrieval-based multi-turn dialog systems. Recently, pre-trained language models (e.g., BERT, RoBERTa, and ELECTRA) showed significant improvements in various natural language processing tasks. This and similar response selection tasks can also be solved using such language models by formulating the tasks as dialog--response binary classification tasks. Although existing works using this approach successfully obtained state-of-the-art results, we observe that language models trained in this manner tend to make predictions based on the relatedness of history and candidates, ignoring the sequential nature of multi-turn dialog systems. This suggests that the response selection task alone is insufficient for learning temporal dependencies between utterances. To this end, we propose utterance manipulation strategies (UMS) to address this problem. Specifically, UMS consist of several strategies (i.e., insertion, deletion, and search), which aid the response selection model towards maintaining dialog coherence. Further, UMS are self-supervised methods that do not require additional annotation and thus can be easily incorporated into existing approaches. Extensive evaluation across multiple languages and models shows that UMS are highly effective in teaching dialog consistency, which leads to models pushing the state-of-the-art with significant margins on multiple public benchmark datasets.Comment: Accepted to AAAI 202

The role of income and frequency of dental visits in the relationship between dental sealant use and resin fillings after extended coverage: a retrospective cohort study

Background Prevention and treatment services use is closely associated with socioeconomic factors, such as income. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between implementing the sealant program and resin fillings restoration and to explore the role of income and frequency of dental visits in this relationship. Methods This retrospective cohort study used the cohort database from the National Health Information Database of the National Health Insurance Service. The study population comprised 494,731 children born in 2007. A logistic regression model for the experience of resin fillings and a linear regression model for weighted utilization of them were used to identify the independent effects of dental sealants, income, and frequency of dental visits. All analyses were conducted using the SAS Enterprise Guide version 7.1 (SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC, USA). Results The ratio based on income level was almost proportional in all groups except the medical aid group, which had a rate as high as that of the wealthier group. Children without sealants were 1.05 times more likely to have resin fillings than others after adjusting for income level and frequency of visiting dental clinics in the final model. However, an opposite relationship between sealant experiences and resin fillings was observed in the previous model without dental visits. The gap in the weighted resin filling scores according to socioeconomic variables showed a similar tendency. Conclusions Income and frequency of dental visits might be confounding factors for the relationship between dental sealant and resin fillings. It is necessary to consider the complex relationship between socioeconomic indicators and service use while studying oral health inequality.The study was financed by the National Health Insurance Service in the Republic of Korea, grant number 20210504DCF-0