North Korean refugee health in South Korea (NORNS) study: study design and methods

BMC Public Health

Study Protocol

Yun Jeong Lee¹  Courtland Robinson²  Yo Han Lee³  Won Jin Lee³  Hee Young Kim⁴  Yun Jeong Kim⁴  Joo Hyung Kim⁴  Myong Jin Cho⁴  Sin Gon Kim⁴  Dong Seop Choi⁴ 

[1] Department of Internal Medicine, Inje University Ilsan Paik Hospital, Goyang, South Korea;Department of International Health, Center for Refugee and Disaster Response, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA;Department of Preventive Medicine, Korea University College of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea;Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Department of Internal Medicine, Korea University Anam Hospital, Seoul, South Korea;

关键词: North Korea;    Refugee;    Health;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2458-12-172

 received in 2012-02-06, accepted in 2012-03-08,  发布年份 2012

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundUnderstanding the health status of North Korean refugees (NKRs), and changes in health during the resettlement process, is important from both the humanitarian standpoint and the scientific perspective. The NOrth Korean Refugee health iN South Korea (NORNS) study aims to document the health status and health determinants of North Korean refugees, to observe various health outcomes as they occur while adapting to the westernized lifestyle of South Korea, and to explain the mechanisms of how health of migrants and refugees changes in the context of new environmental risks and opportunities.MethodsThe NORNS study was composed of an initial survey and a follow-up survey 3.5 years apart. Participants were recruited voluntarily among those aged 30 or more living in Seoul. The survey consists of a health questionnaire and medical examination. The health questionnaire comprises the following six domains: 1) demographic and migration information 2) disease history, 3) mental health, 4) health-related lifestyle, 5) female reproductive health, and 6) sociocultural adaptation. The medical examination comprises anthropometric measurements, blood pressure and atherosclerosis, and various biochemical measurements. Prevalence of several diseases able to be diagnosed from the medical examination, the changes between the two surveys, and the association between the outcome and other measurements, such as length of stay and extent of adaptation in South Korea will be investigated. Furthermore, the outcome will be compared to a South Korean counterpart cohort to evaluate the relative health status of NKRs.DiscussionThe NORNS study targeting adult NKRs in South Korea is a valuable study because various scales and medical measurements are employed for the first time. The results obtained from this study are expected to be utilized for developing a health policy for NKRs and North Korean people after unification. Additionally, since NKRs are an immigrant group who are the same race and have the same genetic characteristics as South Koreans, this study has the characteristics of a unique type of migrant health study.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Lee et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2012. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.