Sungkyu Lee

Hospital type and case mix, along with the presence of housing resources funded by county mental health programs, were found to be associated with variations in length of hospitalization. Further research of a longitudinal or prospective nature is required to determine whether the availability of housing programs for persons with mental disorders leads to shorter hospital stays for those in crisis and to determine whether longer stays are the result of differences in hospital practices.

Awareness, experience and use of IQOS among young Korean adults were relatively higher than among their Japanese counterparts. Current IQOS users were more likely to smoke conventional cigarettes and/or e-cigarettes, which contradicts the tobacco industry's claims that conventional cigarette smokers will switch to heated tobacco products. Until obtaining robust evidence concerning heated tobacco products, the government should regulate the tobacco industry's marketing tactics and health claims.

Electronic cigarettes (e-cigarrettes) were recently introduced and advertised as a smoking cession device in South Korea. As the social norm to quit smoking has gained hold in the country, the number of e-cigarette users is growing rapidly. This phenomenon should be urgently considered, because of the lack of research that has been conducted to examine the safety of e-cigarettes and its efficacy as a smoking cessation aid. This paper raises several public health concerns on e-cigarettes in South

The convergent product is an increasingly important phenomenon in the marketplace. The convergent product allows the developer to include more and more diverse functionalities into their products, which can satisfy a broad range of consumer needs. However, failures of convergent products arouse the need to understand its functionalities, and the optimal combination of functionalities and their relationships to attitude and purchase intention. In addition, because convergent product has the poten

Depression has greater effects on comorbid health conditions and an increase in total healthcare expenditures through comorbid conditions among older adults. Findings of this study suggest that proper detection and treatment of depression is beneficial in reducing overall healthcare expenditures, especially among older adults.

A major barrier to high-quality health care for individuals living in rural communities is specialty care access. Telehealth has emerged as an alternative approach to improving access to specialty care providers. Data on 3,618 adults who reported living in rural areas was analyzed from the 2015 California Health Interview Survey (CHIS). Logistic regression was used to examine predisposing, enabling, and need factors associated with telehealth service use among rural populations. Individuals who

Findings of the study suggest that there are ethnoracial variations in mental health service use between Latino and Asian non-U.S. citizens. Mental health professionals should consider developing tailored mental health interventions that account for cultural variations to enhance access to services for these vulnerable subgroups of Latinos and Asians. Further research should examine ethnic disparities in mental health service use among various non-U.S. citizen racial-ethnic subgroups.

AbstractThis paper examines the extent to which US citizenship status affects the probability of a person’s having a usual source of care and the predictors associated with access to health care among non-citizens. The research is founded on the analysis of data from the 2005 California Health Interview Survey (CHIS) (n = 33,187 adults, ages 18–64). Guided by a modified Andersen model of access to health care, the researchers conducted a series of logistic regression analyses using the survey da

The cost effect of having additional health conditions on the total healthcare expenditures among individuals with SMI is smaller than those individuals without mental illness. Whether this is due to limited access to healthcare for the medical problems or better coordination between medical and mental health providers, which reduces duplicated medical procedures or visits, requires future investigation.