Soo-Hyun Sung

By Jung Youn Park, Ji Young Park and Soo Hyun Sung

The purpose of this chapter was to explore the relationship between social capital and self-rated health status as assessed in the activities of the everyday life of South Korean women with disabilities. For this purpose, the authors analyzed the 8th data of the panel survey of employment for the disabled (PSED) that included a sample of 275 women with disabilities who are paid worker. The authors found that working environment, working hours, personal development possibilities, communication-and interpersonal-relationships, the fairness of performance assessment, welfare benefits, training opportunities, and job satisfaction differed significantly in relation to the self-rated health status of women with disabilities. The authors also found that for working hours, communication, and interpersonal relationships, significantly higher self-rated health status was found for satisfied compared to the satisfaction group. For personal development possibilities, welfare benefits, and training opportunities, self-rated health status was significantly higher for the satisfaction group than the dissatisfied group. For fairness of the performance assessment, self-rated health status of the satisfaction group was significantly higher than in the dissatisfied and the normal group. Therefore, in order to improve the self-rated health of South Korean women with disabilities, it is necessary to provide working environment considering their disability characteristics and various training opportunities in their workplace.

Part of the book: Public Health

By Ji Yeon Ryu, Jung Youn Park, Angela Dongmin Sung and Soo Hyun Sung

A cross-sectional study has been conducted to detect the facts about the use of traditional herbal medicines (THMs) in South Korea. The questionnaire has been adopted from the 2017 National Survey for the usage of traditional Korean medicine (TKM) and consumption of THMs. A total number of 1346 participants have been involved in this study. Results showed that the non-decoction types of herbal medicines, which are mostly used for therapeutic purposes (89.0%), and the decoction types of herbal medicines were not only used for the purpose of treatment of diseases (62.5%) but also health improvement purposes (21.9%). Results presented that decoction types of THMs are used for musculoskeletal diseases (56.0%), digestive diseases (21.3%), and respiratory diseases (6.3%), whereas the non-decoction types of THMs are commonly used in musculoskeletal diseases (55.6%), respiratory diseases (20.5%), and digestive diseases (18.1%). Future studies are highly recommended to detect more details about the medical use of THMs in South Korea.

Part of the book: Medicinal Plants