Doo Woong Lee

Massachusetts General Hospital | MGH · Center for Global Health

Introduction This study aimed to provide evidence for the need for social and welfare support in suicide prevention. Methods Data were collected from the Korean Welfare Panel Study, 2011–2016. The study sample consisted of 7504 people (male: 3080 and female: 4424; mean age: 54.4 ± 16.6), with annual follow‐ups until 2016. A generalized linear mixe...

Continuity of care and area deprivation have been implicated as possible risk factors of suicide in psychiatric patients. This nested case-control study aimed to examine the association between continuity of care and area deprivation and suicide completion in patients with psychiatric disorders. Data were collected from the Korean National Health I...

Introduction This study aimed to investigate the impact of individual- and community-level deprivation on suicidal behaviors among community members. Methods Data from 350,884 UK Biobank participants were employed to construct an individual deprivation index. Absolute poverty was defined as a pre-tax annual household income below ₤18,000. Predicto...

Background: South Korea has one of the longest operating universal health coverage (UHC) systems. A comprehensive analysis of long-term trajectories of morbidity and mortality in the South Korean population after the inception of UHC is needed to inform health-care policy and practice. Methods: We used data from the Global Burden of Disease Stud...

Purpose This study aimed to identify the association between coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) transmission levels and undergoing glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) test and complication screenings among patients with diabetes mellitus. Materials and Methods We included a total of 3601 diabetes patients’ data from the 2020 Korean Community Health Surve...

Objectives: In this study, the trends and current situation of the injury burden as well as attributable burden to injury risk factors at global, regional, and national levels based on the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2019 are presented. Study design: To assess the attributable burden of injury risk factors, th...

Summary Background Future trends in disease burden and drivers of health are of great interest to policy makers and the public at large. This information can be used for policy and long-term health investment, planning, and prioritisation. We have expanded and improved upon previous forecasts produced as part of the Global Burden of Diseases, Injur...

Summary Background Future trends in disease burden and drivers of health are of great interest to policy makers and the public at large. This information can be used for policy and long-term health investment, planning, and prioritisation. We have expanded and improved upon previous forecasts produced as part of the Global Burden of Diseases, Injur...

Background The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has been one of the most serious global threats to public health recently. The present study examined whether area deprivation is associated with concerns related to COVID-19 using large nationwide data across South Korea. Methods We used nationwide 2020 Korea Community Health Survey and...

Objectives: North Korean Refugees (NKRs) undergo defection, and this has been shown to impact their current health status in South Korea. However, little is understood about how the defection process is related to metabolic syndrome (MetS). This study regarded the defection process to be a quasi-measurement of traumatic experience and investigated...

Background: Combating viral hepatitis is part of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and WHO has put forth hepatitis B elimination targets in its Global Health Sector Strategy on Viral Hepatitis (WHO-GHSS) and Interim Guidance for Country Validation of Viral Hepatitis Elimination (WHO Interim Guidance). We estimated the global, regional, a...

Background Parkinson’s disease (PD) is an increasingly common neurodegenerative disease in an aging society. Whether PD is associated with an increased suicide risk is unclear. Thus, we investigated the effect of new-onset PD on suicide. Methods Using the National Health Insurance Service Senior Sample Cohort of South Korea, 17,143 incident PD pat...

Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the longitudinal association between changes in depressive symptoms and hazardous drinking among South Korean adults. Participants/Methods: This study was conducted using a sample drawn from participants enrolled in the Korea Welfare Panel Study (KoWePS) from 2013 to 2018. Hazardous drinking was defined as a...

Background Ending the global tobacco epidemic is a defining challenge in global health. Timely and comprehensive estimates of the prevalence of smoking tobacco use and attributable disease burden are needed to guide tobacco control efforts nationally and globally. Methods We estimated the prevalence of smoking tobacco use and attributable disease...

Objectives This study aimed to determine the association between community deprivation and poor health behaviours among South Korean adults. Design This was a survey-based cross-sectional study. Setting and participants Data of 224 552 participants from 244 communities were collected from the Korea Community Health Survey, conducted in 2015. Pri...

Healthy dietary habits reduce the likelihood for metabolic syndrome. This study investigated whether awareness of nutrition information is associated with a decreased likelihood for metabolic syndrome after adjusting for potential confounders among Korean adults aged 20 years and older. Data were obtained from the Korea National Health and Nutritio...

Background This study examines the effects of a shift in medical coverage, from National Health Insurance (NHI) to Medical Aid (MA), on health care utilization (measured by the number of outpatient visits and length of stay; LOS) and out-of-pocket medical expenses. Methods Data were collected from the Korean Welfare Panel Study (2010–2016). A tota...

Background: The rate of catastrophic health expenditure (CHE) continues to rise in South Korea. This study examined the association between changes in economic activity and CHE experiences in South Korea. Methods: This study analyzed the Korea Health Panel Survey data using a logistic regression analysis to study the association between changes...

Background Using the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test-Korean revised version (AUDIT-KR), we examined the association between habitual alcohol use and risk-taking behaviors among car users. Methods We used the data of 15,043 car users aged 20 years or older from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES) conducted...

Introduction This study aimed to examine the effect of socioeconomic deprivation on the outcomes of diabetes complications in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Research design and methods We conducted a cohort study using claims data and 2005 national census data. We included of 7510 patients newly diagnosed with T2DM from 2004 to 201...

Few studies have researched the gender-specific effects of electronic nicotine delivery systems on the metabolic syndrome (MetS) and/or its risk factors (central obesity, raised triglycerides, decreased HDL cholesterol, raised blood pressure, raised fasting plasma glucose). Thus, this study investigated the association between smoking behavior (cig...

Background: In Korea, higher education has rapidly grown influenced by sociocultural tradition. Parents invest a significant portion of their household income in their children's education. Private education has been considered to greatly affect students' psychology and behavior. However, past research has largely neglected to study parents who pa...

Background: Frailty is an emerging public health concern among aging populations. Although socioeconomic status is a well-known contributor to frailty, there is limited research investigating the effects of poverty on frailty. This study aimed to examine the association between poverty transitions and frailty prevalence in older adults. Methods:...

Objectives: To examine sex differences in the association between food label unawareness and loss of renal function among South Korean diabetic patients aged ≥30 year and determine whether reading food labels when choosing which food products to consume plays a potential role in slowing the progression of renal disease. Methods: Data from the 20...

Aims To investigate the uptake rate variance of fundus examination for diabetes-related complications among demographically and geographically diverse communities and examine determinants that influence this rate focusing on outpatient eye care clinic accessibility at community level. Methods Data of 20,904 participants with diabetes from 228 comm...

Thyroid disorders are associated with blood glucose abnormalities. For rendering the patients euthyroid, routine screening and care are essential. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the association between continuity of care (COC) and type 2 diabetes onset among patients with thyroid disorders. We used the national claim data. Our...

Purpose: This study aimed to examine the effect of changes in equivalized disposable household income (EHDI) on children's problem behavior. Methods: Data were collected from the Korean Welfare Panel Study (2006, 2009, 2012). A total of 1,005 school-aged children were included in the analysis. Children's problem behavior was measured using the K...

Background/objectives: This study investigated the association between frequency of having breakfast and dyslipidemia in South Korean adults aged 30 or over. Subjects/methods: This study, including 10,874 participants, was based on the Seventh Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey conducted between 2013 and 2016. Using multiple...

The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between intense physical activity and stress in Korean adolescents. The study used data from the Korea Youth Risk Behavior Web-Based Survey (KYRBWS), 2015–2017, that included 170,359 responses from Korean adolescents. Intense activity and stress were measured by self-diagnosis. Additional...

Abstract Background Previous studies have reported that an irregular work schedule, particularly nighttime work, is associated with an altered lipid profile. Additionally, a mismatch in circadian rhythm can affect sleeping and eating habits, leading to poor health. This study aimed to examine the association between night work and dyslipidemia amon...

Background/objective: There are many methods for weight loss and they vary among people. Some are yet to be proven as appropriate regarding its physical or mental side effect. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between weight control success and depression by weight control behaviors (WCB) dividing them into appropriate and...