Environmental and Occupation Factors Associated with Vitamin D Deficiency in Korean Adults: The Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES) 2010–2014

Hye Yin Park, Youn-Hee Lim, Jae Bum Park, Jeongbae Rhie and Soo-Jin Lee
Additional contact information
Hye Yin Park: Samsung Health Research Institute, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Hwaseong-si 18448, Korea
Youn-Hee Lim: Section of Environmental Health, Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen, 1014 København, Denmark
Jae Bum Park: Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Ajou University School of Medicine, Suwon 16499, Korea
Jeongbae Rhie: Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Dankook University College of Medicine, Cheonan 31116, Korea
Soo-Jin Lee: Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Hanyang University College of Medicine, Seoul 04763, Korea

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 24, 1-11

Abstract: While exposure to sunlight is a well-documented primary source of vitamin D supply, factors leading to vitamin D deficiency vary according to population characteristics. Using nationwide data from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES), we aimed to investigate a diverse range of potential factors in association with vitamin D deficiency. Overall, 21,208 participants aged ≥20 years were selected from KNHANES conducted between 2010 and 2014. The associations between various environmental and occupational factors and vitamin D deficiency (defined as serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] < 20 ng/mL) were evaluated in logistic regression models after controlling for potential covariates and also after stratification for age and sex. Under given criteria, 15,138 (71.4%) participants were vitamin D deficient. Significant associations were observed between vitamin D deficiency and average environmental temperature and radiation, weekly walking frequency, type of occupation, and shift work. When participants were stratified by age and sex, we observed greater associations of vitamin D deficiency with walking frequency among young males (odds ratio [OR] and 95% confidence interval [95% CI]: 1.24 [1.05–1.47] for those walking <5 times per week compared to those walking ≥5 times per week) and shift work (OR [95% CI]: 1.40 [1.10–1.78] for those working at night compared to those working during the day). We also observed a significant association of vitamin D deficiency with educational attainment (OR [95% CI]: 1.43 [1.09–1.89] for those with ≤middle school compared to those with ≥high school) among older group of females. This study suggests that vitamin D deficiency is related to geographical conditions and subpopulation characteristics. The age and sex-specific associations may urge the effective promotion of vitamin D supply recommendations.

Keywords: environmental exposure; health behavior; occupational exposure; vitamin D (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/24/9166/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/24/9166/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:24:p:9166-:d:458669

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().