Effects of Behavioral Risk Factors and Social-Environmental Factors on Non-Communicable Diseases in South Korea: A National Survey Approach

Nam Jeong Jeong, Eunil Park and Angel P. del Pobil
Additional contact information
Nam Jeong Jeong: Department of Interaction Science, College of Computing, Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul 03063, Korea
Eunil Park: Department of Interaction Science, College of Computing, Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul 03063, Korea
Angel P. del Pobil: Department of Interaction Science, College of Computing, Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul 03063, Korea

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 2, 1-11

Abstract: Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are one of the major health threats in the world. Thus, identifying the factors that influence NCDs is crucial to monitor and manage diseases. This study investigates the effects of social-environmental and behavioral risk factors on NCDs as well as the effects of social-environmental factors on behavioral risk factors using an integrated research model. This study used a dataset from the 2017 Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. After filtering incomplete responses, 5462 valid responses remained. Items including one’s social-environmental factors (household income, education level, and region), behavioral factors (alcohol use, tobacco use, and physical activity), and NCDs histories were used for analyses. To develop a comprehensive index of each factor that allows comparison between different concepts, the researchers assigned scores to indicators of the factors and calculated a ratio of the scores. A series of path analyses were conducted to determine the extent of relationships among NCDs and risk factors. The results showed that social-environmental factors have notable effects on stroke, myocardial infarction, angina, diabetes, and gastric, liver, colon, lung, and thyroid cancers. The results indicate that the effects of social-environmental and behavioral risk factors on NCDs vary across the different types of diseases. The effects of social-environmental factors and behavioral risk factors significantly affected NCDs. However, the effect of social-environmental factors on behavioral risk factors was not supported. Furthermore, social-environmental factors and behavioral risk factors affect NCDs in a similar way. However, the effects of behavioral risk factors were smaller than those of social-environmental factors. The current research suggests taking a comprehensive view of risk factors to further understand the antecedents of NCDs in South Korea.

Keywords: non-communicable diseases; behavioral risk factors; social-environmental factors; path analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/2/612/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/2/612/ (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:18:y:2021:i:2:p:612-:d:479259

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 ().