• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.31-65
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• 2015

This paper examines why older wage workers leave their jobs and what determine the hazard of retirement. Major results are as follows. First, aged workers leaving their jobs because of formal mandatory retirement are relatively few in number and largely males employed in large establishments. Second, a higher hourly wage is associated with a greater retirement hazard, especially among male employees of large firms. Third, informal mandatory retirement puts a strong pressure towards retirement among older female workers. Fourth, poor health is the primary reason for retirement among older workers, especially for females and small-firm employees. Finally, reasonable hours and greater flexibility of work tend to lower retirement hazard. We discuss some implications of the results for old-age labor market policies.

• Journal of Korean Public Health Nursing
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.84-96
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• 2017

Purpose: Vitamin D is a fundamental element for bone metabolism. Recently vitamin D deficiency has been implicated in various diseases such as a cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancers. The aim of this study was to identify the risk factors associated with serum vitamin D deficiency among women office workers. Methods: We selected 369 women office workers using the secondary data of the 5th National Health & Nutrition Examination Survey 2010-2012. Data was analyzed by logistic regression of complex sampling design. Results: Women office workers with vitamin D deficiency, defined serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentration < 10ng/mL, were 12.5%. The risk factors for vitamin D deficiency were 20s aged group, married state and more than 40 working hours a week. The risk of vitamin D deficiency was decreased in those with alcohol drinking 1 to 4 times a month. The education level, income, region, smoking, physical activity and sun exposure time did not affect the risk of vitamin D deficiency significantly. Conclusion: Development of vitamin D deficiency prevention educational programs are required for women office workers who more than 40 hours a week in 20s. It should be considered health education including sun exposure duration and behavior.

• Journal of East-West Nursing Research
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.61-68
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• 2015

Purpose: This study was conducted to analyze the annual trends and characteristics of work-related mental disorders including suicide among Korean workers. Methods: Employing the Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance (IACI) data collected by the Korea Worker's Compensation & Welfare Service, we analyzed total work-related mental disorders and suicide cases (n=455) claimed to IACI from 2008 to 2012. We paid a special attention to workers' socioeconomic status and occupational characteristics. Results: The number of injured workers and industrial accident rate decreased during the study period, whereas the case of work-related mental disorders showed significant increase. Mental disorders cases were more prevalent in workers who were male, aged the 40s, and engaged in finance, as well as with 1-5 years of working duration than their respective counterparts. Increasing trend of suicide cases was statistically significant by the Cochran-Mantel-Haenszel test (p=.002). Conclusion: This study suggests that work-related mental disorder management strategy and system should be established.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.22 no.1 s.25
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• pp.90-101
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• 1989

Recently concerns on work stress and mental health status of industrial workers were increased. The purpose of this study was to investigate the work stress measured by PSI (psychiatric symptom index) according to socio-demographic variables. The study population was consisted with two types of group; manual and clerical workers. The major findings of this study were as follows; Mean scores of psychiatric symptom in manual workers were higher in female, youth, educated, unmarried and divorced, noisy condition, that in clerical workers was higher in aged. Mean scores of psychiatric symptom were highly affected by degree of work autonomy, self-esteem, and self-efficacy in both groups. The higher the work autonomy, self-esteem, and self-efficacy, the lower the mean scores of work stress it showed. Psychiatric symptom index was explained with the work autonomy, self-esteem, self-efficacy through multiple stepwise regression. The annual admission rates were high in highly ranked groups on each psychiatric symptom dimension.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.200-207
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• 2008

Objectives : This study examined whether serious psychological distress (SPD) is associated with occupational injury among US employees. Methods : The employed population aged 18-64 years was examined (n=101,855) using data from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) 2000-2003. SPD was measured using the Kessler 6-item Psychological Distress Scale (K-6), a screening scale designed to identify persons with serious mental illness. The predicted marginal prevalence of psychological distress and occupational injury with the adjusted odds ratio were estimated using multiple logistic regression analyses. Results : The age-adjusted 3-month prevalence of occupational injury was $0.80{\pm}0.12%$ in workers with SPD, which was 37% greater than in workers without SPD ($0.58{\pm}0.03%$). The odds of occupational injury in workers with SPD were higher compared to workers without SPD (OR=1.34, 95% CI=0.93-1.92), after controlling for sex, age, race, education, occupation, and activity limitation by at least one medical condition. Male, service and blue collar occupation, and activity limiation by co-morbidity showed significantly higher odds of occupational injury for workers with SPD. Conclusions : The findings suggest that SPD accounts for an increased likelihood of occupational injury among US employees. A further longitudinal study is needed to differentiate the mechanism or causal pathways linking individual injury risk at the workplace, SPD, and socioeconomic factors.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.93-98
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• 2022

Background: Despite a growing number of investigations exploring the health problems in precarious workers, there is still a paucity of studies investigating workplace violence in workers with multi-party employment arrangements (WMPEAs). This study was aimed at comparing the prevalence of workplace violence between non-WMPEA and WMPEA. Methods: The 5th Korean Working Conditions Survey data were used. The study subjects were employees aged 20-74, with 26,239 non-WMPEA and 1,556 WMPEA. WMPEA included temporary agency workers and workers providing outsourced services. Workplace violence including verbal abuse, unwanted sexual attention, threats, and humiliating behaviors were used as outcome variables. The odds ratios of risk of workplace violence were calculated using multiple logistic regression. Results: The age-standardized prevalence of workplace violence was significantly higher among WMPEA. After adjusting for all covariates, the risk of workplace violence among WMPEA was still significant (OR 1.80, 95% CI 1.5-2.2) compared with non-WMPEA. The odds ratio of workplace violence among female WMPEA was 1.99 (95% CI 1.53-2.59), which is higher than that of male WMPEA (OR 1.52, 95% CI 1.18-1.96). Conclusion: We found that WMPEA were exposed to higher risk of workplace violence. Discrimination against WMPEA in the working environment and management policy need to be corrected. It is also necessary to identify the risk factors of workplace violence in WMPEA and to make efforts to prevent violence.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2009.05a
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• pp.1237-1241
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• 2009

With the average life expectancy increasing thanks to better standards of living and medical technology, the number of elderly construction workers in construction sites rises every year to surpass the 450 thousand people in the construction industry (24.7% of all employees in the construction industry). Similarly, the percentage of fatal accidents involving elderly workers has stood at 41~46 percent for the past five years; note that this is significantly higher than the other age groups, making safety measures for dealing with this issue a matter of urgency. This study sought to propose appropriate safety guidelines for elderly construction workers aged 50 years and over by examining the changes in their physical and psychological functions and through the subsequent analysis of the current status and causes of fatal accidents involving them. The guidelines targeted ferroconcrete construction where accidents occur quite often; construction was classified into mold construction, reinforcing rod construction, and concrete construction. Mold construction was further classified into preparation, carry-in, processing, assembly, and disassembly, and reinforcing rod construction, into preparation/transport and processing/assembly. Safety guidelines for each process were presented by dividing them into three aspects considering the changes in the physical and psychological functions according to their ages and type of accident causes: work environment improvement, machinery and equipment improvement, and work method improvement.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.673-682
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• 2004

Breakfast is an important factor for health status of people. This study was carried out to investigate the dietary life related to breakfast of workers and to develope some nutritional convenient diets for the workers. The collected data were consisted of items about general characteristics of the subjects, breakfast pattern, factors affecting on breakfast and opinions on convenient foods. The subjects were classified into labor workers (n=202) and office workers (n=227) aged from twenties to fifties. The rate of skipping breakfast in workers was $31.5\%$ and higher according to the increase of age. Their favorite style of breakfast was mostly Korean traditional diets, but only $38.1\%$ of the subjects had cooked rice as breakfast. The main reason for skipping breakfast was that they had no time for it. But $65.4\%$ of total workers had experiences of using convenience diets. They had these kinds of diets because of convenience. These results suggest that recipe development of convenient breakfast is very important for the good dietary life of the workers.

• Annals of Occupational and Environmental Medicine
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• v.35
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• pp.8.1-8.12
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• 2023

Background: Prolonged use of visual display terminal (VDT) can cause eyestrain, dry eyes, blurred vision, double vision, headache and musculoskeletal symptoms (neck, shoulder, and wrist pain). VDT working hours among workers have greatly increased during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the relationship between VDT working hours and headache/eyestrain in wage workers using data from the sixth Korean Working Conditions Survey (KWCS) (2020-2021) conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: We analyzed the sixth KWCS data of 28,442 wage workers aged 15 years or older. The headache/eyestrain that occurred in the last year was assessed. The VDT work group included workers who use VDT always, almost always, and three-fourth of the working hours, while the non-VDT work group included workers who use VDT half of the working hours, one-fourth of the working hours, almost never, and never. To analyze the relationship between VDT working hours and headache/eyestrain, the odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated using logistic regression analysis. Results: Among the non-VDT work group, 14.4% workers experienced headache/eyestrain, whereas 27.5% workers of the VDT work group experienced these symptoms. For headache/eyestrain, the VDT work group showed adjusted OR of 1.94 (95% CI: 1.80-2.09), compared with the non-VDT work group, and the group that always used VDT showed adjusted OR of 2.54 (95% CI: 2.26-2.86), compared with the group that never used VDT. Conclusions: This study suggests that during the COVID-19 pandemic, as VDT working hours increased, the risk of headache/eyestrain increased for Korean wage workers.

• Journal of Korean Medicine Rehabilitation
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.213-224
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• 2009

Objectives : The purpose of this study was to fine out life nurturing level according to health practice. Methods : The subjects for this study were 2114 industrial workers. Data were collected by using constructed questionnaires and analyzed by t-test, one-way ANOVA. Results : 1. There were statistically significant differences in life nurturing level according to general characteristics-age, marital status, job tenures, income. 2. The higher life nurturing level was showed in high aged, married, long job tenures and high income group. 3. There were statistically significant differences in life nurturing level according to health practice, especially non-smoking, non-drinking, regular exercise and sufficient sleeping group were higher in life nurturing level. Conclusions : This study suggests that health practice is related to life nurturing level and that the introduction of desirable health practice can contribute to life nurturing level.