Korean Job Discussion Forums

[ajosshi]

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2012/02/117_105305.html

By Lee Hyo-sik

South Korea has emerged as a land of opportunity for many from China and other Asian countries but living here could pose health hazards to them.

According to the latest health study, the longer foreign residents stay in Korea, the more vulnerable they are to high blood pressure and other chronic illnesses.

Incheon St. Mary�s Hospital, affiliated with the Catholic University of Korea, said Monday that its department of family medicine, led by doctor Hong Sung-kwan, studied 2,459 migrant workers and wives (1,767 men and 692 women) who underwent a medical checkup at the hospital between 2004 and 2008. The immigrants had been in the country for four years on average at the time of the examination.

The department found a correlation between the length of stay in Korea and the likelihood of catching chronic diseases among migrant workers and wives, it said.

The findings were published in the latest issue of the Journal of the Korean Academy of Family Medicine.

�As foreigners mostly from Asian nations come and live here for a long time, they tend to pick up Korea�s increasingly western lifestyle, eating fast food and exercising less. They are also prone to a tremendous level of stress as a result of financial and other difficulties,� Hong said. �To gauge the health of immigrant population, we decided to comprehensively look into their health conditions. We found many who have lived here for quite a long time suffer from a range of modern-day diseases such as diabetes, obesity and high-blood pressure.�

According to the study, 30.8 percent of migrant workers and their wives suffered from high-blood pressure, higher than 26.9 percent among Koreans aged over 30.

It also found the longer they stay in the country, the more likely they are to catch various illnesses.

Foreign males who resided here and worked on mostly manual jobs for four to six years were 1.9 times more likely to develop high-blood pressure, compared with their counterparts staying in the country for less than one year.

Non-Korean men who lived here for over seven years were found to have suffered from hyperlipidemia, 1.95 times more likely than those staying for less than a year.

�Over 34 percent of foreign residents who came here to either work on mostly physically-demanding and low-paying jobs or marry Koreans were found to be obese, compared with 33 percent among Korean low-income earners,� Hong said. �Immigrants who lived here for over four years were 1.65 times more likely to be obese than those residing here for less than a year.�

He said with more people coming to settle down from other Asian countries, Korea needs to come out with a comprehensive system to counter the growing health problems among the immigrant population.

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[happiness]

thats so odd when i read that, ve been here near 12 years, i relatively thin and eat well, but i have high blood pressure.

i need to really really be like water now...

[rkc76sf]

[HANGRY]

Yeah I'm no statistician, but I think there is something misleading about those numbers.

[DIsbell]