To 2,987 senior citizens over the age of 65 living in the Daegu & Gyeongbuk region who had taken the health inspection carried out by the NHIC(National Health Insurance Corporation), excluding the ones that didn't take the secondary inspection or ones...
To 2,987 senior citizens over the age of 65 living in the Daegu & Gyeongbuk region who had taken the health inspection carried out by the NHIC(National Health Insurance Corporation), excluding the ones that didn't take the secondary inspection or ones who left out some life style categories of the medical questionnaire and except the ones with medical history which has life styles that can be improved, are the subject of analysis on the relations between general characteristics of sex, area and age and discovery rates of insured seniors as disease-holders and life styles(dietary habits, drinking, smoking, exercising)of health threatening factors that could induce the increase of chronical diseases.
From the inspection results Daegu had the highest normality rates and Gyungbuk had the highest disease-holder and health-warning rates. Gyeongbuk which has relatively high senior population and has poor medical and social economic environment showed poor health conditions in senior citizens.
In dietary habits, women preferred vegetable diets more than men and drinking and smoking habits showed relations to sexes. Similar relations were found in exercising habits. Most of the senior citizens didn't exercise regularly and more women than men, Gyeongbuk than Daegu, pre-seniors than after-seniors showed more cases of not exercising.
In relations between life styles and diseases, more than 3 to 4 times of alcohol usage showed close relations with health warnings and disease-holding rates. It shows that appropriate doses of alcohol does not effect health a lot but excessive drinking can be a causing factor of chronical diseases. High blood-pressure, hyperlipidemia and liver diseases had close relations with drinking habits.
In smoking habits, people smoking over a pack a day had more health warnings and disease holdings rates than light smokers and also smokers of under 5 years showed high health warnings and disease holding rates so further studies in the aspect of smoking habits(amount, motive, mental stress, etc) is thought to be required.
Because drinking and smoking habits are in close relations with chronical diseases, continuous managing is necessary. Above all, after being contracted of various chronical diseases and as of getting older the rate of quitting alcohol and tobacco increased. On top of that, the need for improvement in life styles of people that are not yet exposed to chronical diseases, because of such high health warning rates, are seriously required.
By dividing into two groups of healthy(normal A, normal B) and unhealthy(health warning, disease-holder) and analyzing the relation with health practice activities(vegetable diet, alcohol-free, smoke-free, exercise) the results showed that more health practice activities made higher healthy group rates.
Therefore, the education and health managing programs of health practice activities before the contraction to chronical diseases are required immediately and the positive management of these people in one aspect, lessens the social economic costs in the end than required after being contracted of the chronical diseases but on the other, it's the right way to ensure the healthy life of our seniorhood.