This study was done to compare the health status between urban and rural elementary students. The subjects of the study were 5,166 urban students and 914 rural
students. They were students in grades 4, 5, and 6 of five elementary schools from each
area, The urban elementary schools were selected from cities close to Seoul and the
rural elementary schools in the vicinity of Chun Joo city. Health status measurements included oral health problems, visual acquity, and obesity. Health status data were collected from the student health records which contained information from the health screening results of 1996. The data was managed and analysed using DBASE and SAS computer program.
The results of this study were as fallows :
1. General characteristics There was no significant differences in age between the
urban and rural students. However, the urban schools had more male students than the
rural schools(p<0.05).
2. Health status : Urban students were taller and heavier and had a higher BMI than
the rural students. These results were statistically significant. The rural students had
better eye sight in both eyes than the urban student(p<0.001). But the rural students
had more oral problems. The mean number of teeth needing treatment in the rural
students was 2.28, while for the urban students it was 0.67.
3. Factors affecting health status : There were no specific variables which were
associated with oral problem and eye sight execpt region(urban and rural).
However, there were several variables that were significantly associated with obesity. These included being an urban student male, and older, having more extra school activities, not eating three meals a day, consuming extra flood and not being fussy about food.