The Association between Social Support, Metabolic Syndrome, and Incidence of Cardio-Cerebrovascular Diseases in Older Adults: The ARIRANG Study.

PURPOSE: We investigated the association between social support, metabolic syndrome, and incident cardio-cerebrovascular disease (CCVD) in rural Koreans aged ≥50 years. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We conducted a prospective study using the Korean Genome and Epidemiology Study on Atherosclerosis Risk of Rural Areas in the Korean General Population (KoGES-ARIRANG) dataset. From the baseline of 5169 adults, 1682 participants were finally included according to the exclusion criteria. For outcomes, myocardial infarction, angina, and stroke were included. For independent variables, the social support score and metabolic syndrome were used. Descriptive statistics and multivariate logistic regression were performed to investigate the association among the variables. Paired t-test was conducted to analyze the longitudinal variation of social support scores. RESULTS: During the 6.37 years of median follow-up, 137 participants developed CCVD. The adjusted odds ratio (aOR) of metabolic syndrome with persistently high social support was 2.175 [95% confidence interval (CI): 1.479-3.119]. The aOR of metabolic syndrome with persistently low social support was 2.494 (95% CI: 1.141-5.452). The longitudinal variation of the social support score of persistently high social support group was increased significantly by 4.26±26.32. The score of the persistently low social support group was decreased by 1.34±16.87 with no statistical significance. CONCLUSION: The presence of metabolic syndrome increases the likelihood of developing onset CCVD. Within the metabolic syndrome positive group, when social support was persistently low, the cohort developed more cardio-cerebrovascular disease compared to the persistently higher social support group. The social support score of the persistently low social support group could be improved through proper intervention. To prevent CCVD, metabolic syndrome components and low social support should be improved in the study participants.

Analysis of digital capacity-related factors influencing health promotion participation and active aging of older adults residing in rural areas in South Korea: A structural equation model.

Objective: This study aimed to identify the correlation between digital capacity, health promotion participation, and active aging of older people living in rural areas in South Korea to assess the factors influencing participation in programs for health promotion and active aging. Methods: Data were collected through a 1:1 face-to-face survey using a structured questionnaire from 13 February to 24 February 2023 during the older individuals' visits in the senior citizen welfare centers and senior citizen centers in the region. The Measuring Digital Skills questionnaire used to assess the digital competence of South Korean individuals was employed in this study. To confirm the structural relationship between digital capacity and health promotion participation and active aging in the older population aged 65 years and older based on the collected data, a structural equation modeling analysis was performed. Results: Active health promotion participation had a positive effect on active aging. The pathway that older adults in Korea can led to participation in health promotion and active aging in the current situation is not mainly through the digital competency whereas mobile internet skill showed positive influneces. Conclusions: In the digital era and super-aged society, various programs are provided to older individuals to enhance the utilization of smartphones. However, education and programs for strengthening digital capacity should be organized to explain the advantages of digital use and to inform of the dangers of addiction to ensure healthy aging through social participation and exchange both online and offline.

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Rural Digital Social Prescribing in Korea: Protocol for a Cohort Study.

BACKGROUND: The UK National Health Service (NHS) has introduced a digital social prescribing (DSP) system to improve the mental health of the aging population. In Korea, an ongoing pilot social prescribing project has been implemented for older individuals in rural areas since 2019. OBJECTIVE: This research aims to develop a DSP program and to evaluate the effectiveness of the digital platform in rural areas of Korea. METHODS: This study was designed as a prospective cohort method for the development and effectiveness evaluation of rural DSP in Korea. The study divided participants into four groups. Group 1 will continuously implement the existing social prescribing program, group 2 implemented the existing social prescribing program but was switched to DSP in 2023, group 3 newly started the DSP, and the remaining group is the control. The research area of this study is Gangwon Province in Korea. The study is being conducted in Wonju, Chuncheon, and Gangneung. This study will use indicators to measure depression, anxiety, loneliness, cognitive function, and digital literacy. In the future, the interventions will implement the digital platform and the Music Story Telling program. This study will evaluate the effectiveness of DSP using difference-in-differences regression and cost-benefit analysis. RESULTS: This study was approved for funding from the National Research Foundation of Korea funded by the Ministry of Education in October 2022. The results of the data analysis are expected to be available in September 2023. CONCLUSIONS: The platform will be spread to rural areas in Korea and will serve as the foundation for effectively managing the feelings of solitude and depression among older individuals. This study will provide vital evidence for disseminating DSP in Asian countries such as Japan, China, Singapore, and Taiwan as well as for studying DSP in Korea. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): PRR1-10.2196/46371.

Global Trends in Social Prescribing: Web-Based Crawling Approach.

BACKGROUND: Social loneliness is a prevalent issue in industrialized countries that can lead to adverse health outcomes, including a 26% increased risk of premature mortality, coronary heart disease, stroke, depression, cognitive impairment, and Alzheimer disease. The United Kingdom has implemented a strategy to address loneliness, including social prescribing-a health care model where physicians prescribe nonpharmacological interventions to tackle social loneliness. However, there is a need for evidence-based plans for global social prescribing dissemination. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to identify global trends in social prescribing from 2018. To this end, we intend to collect and analyze words related to social prescribing worldwide and evaluate various trends of related words by classifying the core areas of social prescribing. METHODS: Google's searchable data were collected to analyze web-based data related to social prescribing. With the help of web crawling, 3796 news items were collected for the 5-year period from 2018 to 2022. Key topics were selected to identify keywords for each major topic related to social prescribing. The topics were grouped into 4 categories, namely Healthy, Program, Governance, and Target, and keywords for each topic were selected thereafter. Text mining was used to determine the importance of words collected from new data. RESULTS: Word clouds were generated for words related to social prescribing, which collected 3796 words from Google News databases, including 128 in 2018, 432 in 2019, 566 in 2020, 748 in 2021, and 1922 in 2022, increasing nearly 15-fold between 2018 and 2022 (5 years). Words such as health, prescribing, and GPs (general practitioners) were the highest in terms of frequency in the list for all the years. Between 2020 and 2021, COVID, gardening, and UK were found to be highly related words. In 2022, NHS (National Health Service) and UK ranked high. This dissertation examines social prescribing-related term frequency and classification (2018-2022) in Healthy, Program, Governance, and Target categories. Key findings include increased "Healthy" terms from 2020, "gardening" prominence in "Program," "community" growth across categories, and "Target" term spikes in 2021. CONCLUSIONS: This study's discussion highlights four key aspects: (1) the "Healthy" category trends emphasize mental health, cancer, and sleep; (2) the "Program" category prioritizes gardening, community, home-schooling, and digital initiatives; (3) "Governance" underscores the significance of community resources in social prescribing implementation; and (4) "Target" focuses on 4 main groups: individuals with long-term conditions, low-level mental health issues, social isolation, or complex social needs impacting well-being. Social prescribing is gaining global acceptance and is becoming a global national policy, as the world is witnessing a sharp rise in the aging population, noncontagious diseases, and mental health problems. A successful and sustainable model of social prescribing can be achieved by introducing social prescribing schemes based on the understanding of roles and the impact of multisectoral partnerships.

Effect of a Digital Literacy Program on Older Adults' Digital Social Behavior: A Quasi-Experimental Study.

In South Korea, digital literacy education programs are expected to help its older population participate in online welfare services to increase their social support, self-esteem and well-being. This quasi-experimental study assesses the effects of digital literacy education on digital device usage among rural-dwelling adults aged 65 and above and evaluates the positive effects of digital literacy education on depression, happiness, quality of life, self-efficacy and cognitive function. A digital literacy education program and a customized questionnaire survey were conducted to evaluate smartphone use competency and the program's effects, respectively. We also conducted a chi-square test, paired t-test and difference-in-differences regression analysis. The experimental group showed a significant increase in smartphone usage and video recording capacity than the control group. The happiness and cognitive function scores for dementia screening increased significantly by a mean of 3.7 and 1.1 points, respectively, after digital literacy education. Cognitive function increased significantly by 1.305 points in the experimental group compared to the control group (ß = 1.305, p = 0.05 *). Digital literacy education for older adults in rural areas greatly increased smartphone use, video recording capacity, happiness and cognitive function. Based on these findings, it is recommended that the government should implement digital literacy education for older adults in rural areas to increase their happiness and cognitive function.

Global developments in social prescribing.

Social prescribing is an approach that aims to improve health and well-being. It connects individuals to non-clinical services and supports that address social needs, such as those related to loneliness, housing instability and mental health. At the person level, social prescribing can give individuals the knowledge, skills, motivation and confidence to manage their own health and well-being. At the society level, it can facilitate greater collaboration across health, social, and community sectors to promote integrated care and move beyond the traditional biomedical model of health. While the term social prescribing was first popularised in the UK, this practice has become more prevalent and widely publicised internationally over the last decade. This paper aims to illuminate the ways social prescribing has been conceptualised and implemented across 17 countries in Europe, Asia, Australia and North America. We draw from the 'Beyond the Building Blocks' framework to describe the essential inputs for adopting social prescribing into policy and practice, related to service delivery; social determinants and household production of health; workforce; leadership and governance; financing, community organisations and societal partnerships; health technology; and information, learning and accountability. Cross-cutting lessons can inform country and regional efforts to tailor social prescribing models to best support local needs.

COVID-19 Vaccine Perception in South Korea: Web Crawling Approach.

BACKGROUND: The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization emphasized vaccination against COVID-19 because physical distancing proved inadequate to mitigate death, illness, and massive economic loss. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to investigate Korean citizens' perceptions of vaccines by examining their views on COVID-19 vaccines, their positive and negative perceptions of each vaccine, and ways to enhance policies to increase vaccine acceptance. METHODS: This cross-sectional study analyzed posts on NAVER and Instagram to examine Korean citizens' perception of COVID-19 vaccines. The keywords searched were "vaccine," "AstraZeneca," and "Pfizer." In total 8100 posts in NAVER and 5291 posts in Instagram were sampled through web crawling. Morphology analysis was performed, overlapping or meaningless words were removed, sentiment analysis was implemented, and 3 public health professionals reviewed the results. RESULTS: The findings revealed a negative perception of COVID-19 vaccines; of the words crawled, the proportion of negative words for AstraZeneca was 71.0% (476/670) and for Pfizer was 56.3% (498/885). Among words crawled with "vaccine," "good" ranked first, with a frequency of 13.43% (312/2323). Meanwhile, "side effect" ranked highest, with a frequency of 29.2% (163/559) for "AstraZeneca," but 0.6% (4/673) for "Pfizer." With "vaccine," positive words were more frequently used, whereas with "AstraZeneca" and "Pfizer" negative words were prevalent. CONCLUSIONS: There is a negative perception of AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines in Korea, with 1 in 4 people refusing vaccination. To address this, accurate information needs to be shared about vaccines including AstraZeneca, and the experiences of those vaccinated. Furthermore, government communication about risk management is required to increase the AstraZeneca vaccination rate for herd immunity before the vaccine expires.

Which Group Should be Vaccinated First?: A Systematic Review.

BACKGROUND: Since the supply of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines will be limited worldwide, it is essential to prioritize vaccination based on scientific evidence. Although several frameworks and studies on vaccine distribution have been published, no published systematic review has evaluated the prioritization of the COVID-19 vaccine. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We searched 4 different databases, PubMed, SCOPUS, Web of Science, and EMBASE for articles published between January 2019 and December 31, 2020. Studies were included if they contained the primary search terms "vaccine", "COVID-19", and "prioritization". In addition, we manually included reports from national and international websites. RESULTS: Thirteen studies met the inclusion criteria. In these studies, older adults were the most frequently mentioned group, and healthcare workers (HCWs) were mentioned as the 1st priority group. HCWs and patients with comorbidities were the 2nd and 3rd most frequently mentioned groups in the reviewed papers. Reducing severe COVID-19 was the most frequently mentioned goal. CONCLUSION: Since vaccination programs have been initiated in several countries, scientific evidence on vaccination prioritization is needed to increase our knowledge of general vaccine prioritization and improve vaccine acceptance. Our results showed that HCWs and older adults were the most frequently valued in studies.

Barriers and Enabling Factors Affecting Satisfaction and Safety Perception with Use of Bicycle Roads in Seoul, South Korea.

Cycling has proven to be an important strategy in decreasing the risk of non-communicable diseases. This study aimed to discover barriers and enabling factors influencing satisfaction and safety perceptions towards the use of bicycle roads in the Seoul metropolitan area, South Korea. A cross-sectional survey of 190 youth and adult individuals was conducted. Sex, age, purpose of bicycle use, perceived safety, availability of facilities, road gradient, road width, and traffic on the bicycle road were associated with cycling regularity. Multivariate regression analysis showed that the sufficiency of bicycle parking space, moderate slope, and enough bicycle signs were significant enabling factors for satisfaction with the use of bicycle roads. Narrow bicycle roads were found to be a barrier to satisfaction with the use of bicycle roads. Moderate slope, enough bicycle signs, and enough maintenance facilities around bike roads were found to be enabling factors in the perceived safety of the use of bicycle roads, whereas traffic on the side of the bicycle road was found to be a barrier to perceived safety. Based on these findings, we conclude that healthy cities should promote cycling behavior encouraging enabling factors and initiating attempts to improve the factors that act as barriers through urban planning.