Professor Dirk Bethmann from Korea University’s Department of Economics and Dr. Cho Jae Il from the Insurance Research Institute revealed on Thursday that simply perceiving the risk of war can negatively affect adolescents’ mental and physical health.
This study, published in the internationally renowned journal Social Science & Medicine, has garnered significant attention in academic circles.
The research team examined the health status of adolescents living in border areas with North Korea during North Korea’s two nuclear tests in 2016.
Using a difference-in-differences method, they classified adolescents from areas with heightened military alertness as the experimental group and those from other regions as the control group.
According to the study’s findings, in 2016, compared to 2014 and 2015, adolescents in the border areas near North Korea experienced increases in depressive symptoms (3.7%) and aggression (5.5%), as well as physical issues such as headaches (6.8%) and fevers (5.4%).
The impact was particularly pronounced among female adolescents, who showed greater susceptibility than their male counterparts, with depressive symptoms increasing by 6.0%, aggression by 8.0%, headaches by 11.4%, and fevers by 12.9%.
These findings suggest that the heightened perception of war risk during periods of increased inter-Korean tension has contributed to both psychological stress and physical health problems among adolescents in border regions.
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