Juhwan Oh

In the first two months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Republic of Korea (South Korea) had the second highest number of cases globally yet was able to dramatically lower the incidence of new cases and sustain a low mortality rate, making it a promising example of strong national response. We describe the main strategies undertaken and selected facilitators and challenges in order to identify transferable lessons for other countries working to control the spread and impact of COVID-19. Identified

Our results suggest that multilevel risk factors along with gender differences should be considered to protect adolescents from addictive Internet use.

Most countries have implemented restrictions on mobility to prevent the spread of Coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19), entailing considerable societal costs but, at least initially, based on limited evidence of effectiveness. We asked whether mobility restrictions were associated with changes in the occurrence of COVID-19 in 34 OECD countries plus Singapore and Taiwan. Our data sources were the Google Global Mobility Data Source, which reports different types of mobility, and COVID-19 cases retrie

The adolescent depression experience is not only an individual phenomenon but is highly associated with other factors such as parents, peers, academic achievement, and even gender mix in the school. Thus, prevention measures on youth depression need to focus on emphasizing less pressure from parents on academic performance, and establishing healthy inter-gender relationships within co-education schools.

Household wealth in early life matters for physical growth with conditions of poverty and deprivation influencing growth faltering even beyond the 1,000 days window. The influences of early childhood poverty, so prevalent among children in low- and middle-income countries, must be addressed by policies and programs targeting early life but also focusing on older children experiencing growth faltering.

Our findings suggest that strategies for encouraging positive social support and discouraging negative social support for disadvantaged individuals might be effective in reducing depression in Korea.

Precarious workers were more likely to be smokers and heavy smokers than standard workers. Unemployment is also a significant risk factor for decreased quitting and smoking relapse. However, insecure employment was an even more consistent determinant of current smoking behavior than unemployment.

The study results call for health and education policies to encourage the postponement of early sexual activity in young Vietnamese women as protection against risky sexual behaviour later in life.

<b>Abstract</b>-Although South Korea successfully established national health insurance (NHI) in 1977, and has maintained universal coverage since 1989, it has long been criticized for insufficient benefit coverage. Korea has been under public pressure to increase its NHI benefit coverage, while also facing controversies over the appropriateness of items that were newly added to the benefit package. Pressured by the controversies and difficulties regarding national policy decisions on the benefi

The proportion of women in Vietnam using modern contraceptive methods has remained relatively high in recent years with significant variation across Vietnam's 63 provinces. Women of lower SES are more likely to use modern contraceptive methods, especially in the poorer provinces. Achieving access to universal reproductive health is one of the Millennium Development Goals. Vietnam must continue to make progress in this area.

Higher educational attainment in women is an important predictor of women's attitudes toward domestic violence. To date, Doi Moi and the Vietnamese government's commitment to the Millennium Development Goals may have positively contributed to lowering the acceptance of domestic violence. Tailored interventions that focus on education will be important in further changing attitudes toward domestic violence.

Todd Lewis and co-authors discuss development and use of the People's Voice Survey for health system assessment.

Whilst caution is required in interpreting results given the cross-sectional nature of the study, our findings suggest that in addition to raising the price of cigarettes, youth anti-smoking interventions in South Korea may benefit from focusing on coeducation schools and vocational high schools.

Given the evidence from this study, actions to improve access to health care services among people with NCDs are clearly needed. The capacity of primary health care system for the prevention and control of NCDs should be ranked a top priority.