• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.3-44
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• 2022

As a result of a close review focusing on the case of obstruction of epidemiological investigation by a religious group A in Daegu, which was a problem when the pandemic of Covid-19 infection began in Korea around February 2, 2020, when an epidemiological investigator requested a specific group to submit a list, While there have been cases where an act of not responding or submitting an edited omission list was sentenced to the effect that the act did not fall under an epidemiological investigation, in the case of non-submission of the visitor list for the B Center, even though a 'list of visitors' was requested. Regarding the fact of refusal without a justifiable reason, 'providing a list of persons entering the building is a key factual act that forms a link between epidemiological investigations accompanying an epidemiological investigation, and refusing to do so is also an act of refusal and obstruction of an epidemiological investigation. There are cases where it is possible to demand criminal punishment. Regardless of whether the request for submission of the membership list falls under the epidemiological investigation, there are cases in which the someones' actions correspond to the refusal or obstruction of the epidemiological investigation. A lower court ruling that if an epidemiological investigation is rejected or obstructed as a result of interfering with factual acts accompanying an epidemiological investigation, comprehensively considering whether or not the list has been diverted for purposes other than epidemiological investigation, the logic is persuasive. Epidemiological investigations such as surveys and human specimen collection and testing are conducted for each infectious disease patient or contact confirmed as a result of the epidemiological investigation, but epidemiological investigations conducted on individual individuals cannot exist independently of each other, and the This is because the process of identification and tracking is essential to an epidemiological investigation, and if someone intentionally interferes with or rejects the process of confirming this link, it will result in direct, realistic, and widespread interference with the epidemiological investigation. In this article, ① there are differences between an epidemiological investigation and a request for information provision under the Infectious Disease Control and Prevention Act, but there are areas that fall under the epidemiological investigation even in the case of a request for information, ② Considering the medical characteristics of COVID-19 and the continuity of the epidemiological investigation, the epidemiological investigator the fact that the act of requesting a list may fall under the epidemiological investigation, ③ that the offense of obstructing the epidemiological investigation in certain cases may constitute 'obstruction of Performance of Official Duties by Fraudulent Means', and ④ rejecting the request for information provision under the Infectious Disease Control and Prevention Act from September 29, 2020 In this case, it is intended to be helpful in the application of the Infectious Disease control and Prevention Act and the practical operation of epidemiological investigations in the future by pointing out the fact that a new punishment regulation of imprisonment or fine is being implemented.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.56 no.5
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• pp.481-484
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• 2023

Epidemiological models, also known as host-agent-vector-environment models, are utilized in public health to gain insights into disease occurrence and to formulate intervention strategies. In this paper, we propose an epidemiological model that incorporates both conventional measures and tobacco endgame policies. Our model suggests that conventional measures focus on relationships among agent-vector-host-environment components, whereas endgame policies inherently aim to change or eliminate those components at a fundamental level. We also found that the vector (tobacco industry) and environment (physical and social surroundings) components were insufficiently researched or controlled by both conventional measures and tobacco endgame policies. The use of an epidemiological model for tobacco control and the tobacco endgame is recommended to identify areas that require greater effort and to develop effective intervention measures.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.17 no.9
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• pp.2550-2572
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• 2023

Epidemiological survey is an important means for the prevention and control of infectious diseases. Due to the particularity of the epidemic survey, 1) epidemiological survey in epidemic prevention and control has a wide range of people involved, a large number of data collected, strong requirements for information disclosure and high timeliness of data processing; 2) the epidemiological survey data need to be disclosed at different institutions and the use of data has different permission requirements. As a result, it easily causes personal privacy disclosure. Therefore, traditional access control technologies are unsuitable for the privacy protection of epidemiological survey data. In view of these situations, we propose a black box-assisted fine-grained hierarchical access control scheme for epidemiological survey data. Firstly, a black box-assisted multi-attribute authority management mechanism without a trusted center is established to avoid authority deception. Meanwhile, the establishment of a master key-free system not only reduces the storage load but also prevents the risk of master key disclosure. Secondly, a sensitivity classification method is proposed according to the confidentiality degree of the institution to which the data belong and the importance of the data properties to set fine-grained access permission. Thirdly, a hierarchical authorization algorithm combined with data sensitivity and hierarchical attribute-based encryption (ABE) technology is proposed to achieve hierarchical access control of epidemiological survey data. Efficiency analysis and experiments show that the scheme meets the security requirements of privacy protection and key management in epidemiological survey.

• The Journal of Korean Academic Society of Nursing Education
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.433-443
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• 2022

Purpose: This qualitative study was to understand the awareness of epidemiological investigation tasks for nurses who were in charge of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemiological investigations. Methods: Before data collection, written consent was obtained from 13 participants, and the data were then collected from September 1 to December 31, 2021. Individual interviews were conducted and recorded by video interview using Zoom, and data were transcribed verbatim. Four themes were derived by using the qualitative thematic analysis method. Results: The participants perceived that epidemiological investigations were burdensome but that the field work was important, and that expertise and collaboration were required. The participants started work without preparation due to the explosive increase in the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases, and they recognized work conflicts, unstable employment, and exhaustion as obstacles to their work performance. On the other hand, the participants took pride in contributing to the national epidemiological investigation and control and felt a sense of responsibility as nursing professionals. Finally, participants mentioned that the training of infectious disease practitioner was important for work improvement. Conclusion: Further research is needed on the development of standardized manuals for the training of nursing personnel as infectious disease specialists through the job analysis of epidemiological investigators.

• Healthcare Informatics Research
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.253-262
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• 2018

Objectives: We reviewed digital epidemiological studies to characterize how researchers are using digital data by topic domain, study purpose, data source, and analytic method. Methods: We reviewed research articles published within the last decade that used digital data to answer epidemiological research questions. Data were abstracted from these articles using a data collection tool that we developed. Finally, we summarized the characteristics of the digital epidemiological studies. Results: We identified six main topic domains: infectious diseases (58.7%), non-communicable diseases (29.4%), mental health and substance use (8.3%), general population behavior (4.6%), environmental, dietary, and lifestyle (4.6%), and vital status (0.9%). We identified four categories for the study purpose: description (22.9%), exploration (34.9%), explanation (27.5%), and prediction and control (14.7%). We identified eight categories for the data sources: web search query (52.3%), social media posts (31.2%), web portal posts (11.9%), webpage access logs (7.3%), images (7.3%), mobile phone network data (1.8%), global positioning system data (1.8%), and others (2.8%). Of these, 50.5% used correlation analyses, 41.3% regression analyses, 25.6% machine learning, and 19.3% descriptive analyses. Conclusions: Digital data collected for non-epidemiological purposes are being used to study health phenomena in a variety of topic domains. Digital epidemiology requires access to large datasets and advanced analytics. Ensuring open access is clearly at odds with the desire to have as little personal data as possible in these large datasets to protect privacy. Establishment of data cooperatives with restricted access may be a solution to this dilemma.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.48 no.3
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• pp.138-150
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• 2022

Background: Epidemiology is a fundamental study of public health, including environmental health, since the features and causes of diseases discovered through epidemiology provide crucial information for developing successful disease prevention strategies. Objectives: This paper tried to define the role and function of epidemiologic research in the field of environmental health, summarize examples of epidemiological studies with regard to selected environmental health events in South Korea, and address important issues that should be considered when conducting epidemiological research in the future. Methods: Epidemiological studies of selected environmental health events were reviewed and summarized in terms of their contribution to environmental health in South Korea. Based on the information, important issues were suggested for future epidemiological studies in environmental health. Results: The role and function of epidemiologic research in the field of environmental health includes the systematic description of the health effects caused by environmental exposure, verification of the causal relationship between environmental exposure and health effects, and provision of background data for conducting prevention strategies and developing policies. A number of epidemiological studies have contributed to characterizing and assessing the environmental risks involved in a series of environmental health events in South Korea. Conclusions: Important issues for future epidemiological studies may include health effects from chronic low-level environmental exposure, application of analytical epidemiology to elucidate causal relationships, use of exposure/disease/susceptibility biomarkers, accurate reconstruction of past exposure status, cohort recruitment and long-term follow-up, and in-advance surveillance of diseases with environmental causes.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.49 no.6
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• pp.838-844
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• 2016

In this study, epidemiological cut-off values were estimated for 44 Photobacterium damselae isolates, since clinical breakpoints have not been established for this pathogenic bacterium. The susceptibility of the isolates to 10 antibiotics was evaluated using internationally standardized disc diffusion protocols. Normalized resistance interpretation was used to generate statistically valid epidemiological cut-off values for the susceptibility data. There were not enough strains exhibiting full sensitivity to ampicillin and amoxicillin to allow analysis of these antibiotics. Because there were only a marginally sufficient number of strains exhibiting full sensitivity to oxytetracycline, the cut-off value generated provided only a provisional estimate. The valid wild-type cut-off values were <13, 13, 9, 22, 25, 27, and 28 mm for gentamicin, cephalexin, erythromycin, oxolinic acid, flumequine, florfenicol, and sulfamethoxazole/trimethoprim, respectively. The application of these cut-off values should greatly facilitate the rational selection of antibiotics for use in commercial fish farms.

• The Journal of Information Systems
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.123-135
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• 2020

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate the development process and the effectiveness of the EISS (epidemiological investigation support system), which prevents the spread of infectious diseases like a novel corona virus disease, COVID-19. Design/methodology/approach This study identified the existing epidemiological support system for MERS through prior research and studied the case of the development of a newly developed epidemiological support system based on cloud computing infrastructure for COVID-19 through inter-ministerial collaboration in 2020. Findings The outbreak of COVID-19 drove the Korean Government began the development of the EISS with private companies. This system played a significant role in flattening the spread of infection during several waves in which the number of confirmed cases increased rapidly in Korea, However, we need to be careful in handling confirmed patients' private data affecting their privacy.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.53 no.2
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• pp.67-69
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• 2020

Controversy remains over whether the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) virus may have infectivity during the incubation period before the onset of symptoms. The author had the opportunity to examine the infectivity of COVID-19 during the incubation period by conducting an epidemiological survey on a confirmed patient who had visited Jeju Island during the incubation period. The epidemiological findings support the claim that the COVID-19 virus does not have infectivity during the incubation period.

• Journal of applied mathematics & informatics
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• v.28 no.5_6
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• pp.1359-1378
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• 2010

The effect of impulse in the ecological models makes them more realistic. Recently, the eco-epidemiological models have become an important field of study from the both mathematical and ecological view points. In this article, we consider some eco-epidemiological systems under the influence of impulsive force. A set of sufficient conditions for the permanence of the system are derived. Stability of the trivial solution and at least one strictly positive periodic solution are obtained. Numerical examples are given in support to our analytical findings. Finally, a short discussion concludes the paper.