A Comparision of health Status between Urban and Rural Elementary Students in Korea

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