Purpose: This ethnography was done to explore the meaning of illness in Korean Americans with chronic hepatitis B. Methods: The participants were 6 patients with chronic hepatitis B and 6 general informants who could provide relevant data. Data were collected from iterative fieldwork with ethnographic interviews within Korean communities in two cities in the United States. Data were analyzed using causal chain analysis developed by Wolcott. Results: The analyses revealed three meanings for the illness: hidden disease, intentionally hidden disease, and inevitably hidden disease. The contexts of meaning of illness included characteristics of the illness, social stigma, structure of health care system and communication patterns and discourse between health care providers and clients. Conclusion: The meaning of illness was based on folk illness concepts and constructed in the sociocultural context. Folk etiology, pathology and interpretation of one's symptoms were factors influencing illness behavior. These findings could be a cornerstone for culture specific care for Korean Americans with chronic hepatitis B.

Objective: This study examined gender, ethnicity and psychological factors associated with alcohol problems among Asian American college students, using the CAGE questionnaire. Method: The study is a cross-sectional, school-based survey. College students who self-identified as Asian, participated. Results: The sample comprised 258 Asian American college students (132 men and 126 women). In all, 17.7% of males and 8.9% of females had alcohol problems based on CAGE score of 2 or more; yet, the difference was marginally significant (χ 2 [1, N ¼ 225] ¼ 3.7, p ¼ 0.08). Chinese and Vietnamese males tended to have more alcohol problems than females in their respective ethnic subgroups. Among Koreans, more females (33%) had the problems than males (11%). Male students did not differ in alcohol problems by ethnicity, whereas Korean females were more likely to have the problems ( χ 2 [4, N ¼ 112] ¼ 13.0, p ¼ 0.01) than females in the other groups. After controlling for gender, Asian American college students who were older (!25), smoking currently and reporting depressed mood were more likely to have alcohol problems. Conclusions: College health center workers should monitor more closely Asian students who have the risk factors for early detection of and treatment for alcohol problems.

This study explored the level of knowledge and attitudes toward hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection and vaccination of adolescents in juvenile detention facilities and in schools in South Korea. A cross-sectional comparison design with a convenient sampling method was used. Participants in the study were 301 delinquent and 410 school adolescents. The results showed that knowledge of HBV infection among juvenile detention adolescents was significantly lower but there was no difference between groups in attitudes toward infection and vaccination.