* (Left) Prof. Kyu Sung Kee , (Right) Prof. Munjae Lee

▷ Original news: http://www.bizwnews.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=13148

▷ Research article: https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0383/9/1/121

[Bizworld] The research suggests that people with low-income and difficulties paying the medical expense have a higher risk of having a chronic disease. Also, People who regularly undergo medical checkups and perform exercises have a lower risk of having a chronic illness.

Prof. Kyu Sung Lee (Dept. of Urology), Director of Smart Healthcare Institute of Samsung Medical Center (Seoul), and a research team led by Prof. Munjae Lee (Dept. of Medical Device Management & Research at SAIHST, Sungkyunkwan University) conducted a study. The research used the source data from the 2nd year (2017) of the 7th period of the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, and 3795 adults aged above 40 years participated in the survey. The Journal of Clinical Medicine, one of the world-renowned journals, published their research results on 2 January 2020.

According to the research result, “In participants with higher income, the risk of developing chronic disease reduced by 0.77 times. With regard to the type of health insurance, the risk of developing chronic diseases increased by 1.727 times among medical care beneficiaries.”

“Meanwhile, the risk of developing chronic diseases decreased by 0.78 times and 0.86 times among those who underwent medical checkups and who performed exercises, respectively. In patients with hypercholesterolemia, the risk increased by 5.44 times.”

The research team also suggests that healthcare inequality in terms of income causes a burden on paying the medical expense and leads to a high risk of developing a chronic disease. And periodic management of the chronic disease can lower the risk of morbidity.

The research highlights that “medical care beneficiaries with low income may have more difficulty in managing chronic diseases.” It also presumes that “chronic diseases develop due to a combination of factors. Age, socioeconomic factors, obesity, and hypercholesterolemia are factors that can be controlled to prevent and manage chronic diseases through comprehensive programs rather than through individual management.”

The research also shows that weight management through exercise can prevent chronic diseases. To ensure the effectiveness of exercise and help medical clinics to perform periodic monitoring, it is essential to establish a personalized chronic disease management system by using ICT and wearable medical device.

Also, those in the lower social class are more likely to require chronic disease management via primary healthcare institutions in the community, and local clinic-centered chronic disease management can relieve health-related inequalities.

In this study, health management in daily life also requires local clinic-centered services that provide chronic disease patients with a higher excess. Thus, a community care project in line with community-based primary healthcare services can ensure continuous health care for a common goal, such as chronic disease management.