• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.151-155
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• 2015

The study was designed to identify any trends of injury type as it relates to the age and trade of construction workers. The participants for this study included any individual who, while working on a heavy and highway construction project in the Midwestern United States, sustained an injury during the specified time frame of when the data were collected. During this period, 143 injury reports were collected. The four trade/occupation groups with the highest injury rates were laborers, carpenters, iron workers, and operators. Data pertaining to injuries sustained by body part in each age group showed that younger workers generally suffered from finger/hand/wrist injuries due to cuts/lacerations and contusion, whereas older workers had increased sprains/strains injuries to the ankle/foot/toes, knees/lower legs, and multiple body parts caused by falls from a higher level or overexertion. Understanding these trade-related tasks can help present a more accurate depiction of the incident and identify trends and intervention methods to meet the needs of the aging workforce in the industry.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.406-414
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• 2023

Background: This study examined age-group differences in the rate, severity, and cost of injuries among construction workers to support evidence-based worker safety and health interventions in the construction industry. Methods: Ohio workers' compensation claims for construction workers were used to estimate claim rates and costs by age group. We analyzed claims data auto-coded into five event/exposure categories: transportation incidents; slips, trips, and falls (STFs); exposure to harmful substances and environments; contact with objects and equipment (COB); overexertion and bodily reaction. American Community Survey data were used to determine the percentage of workers in each age group. Results: From 2007-2017, among 72,416 accepted injury claims for ~166,000 construction full-time equivalent (FTE) per year, nearly half were caused by COB, followed by STFs (20%) and overexertion (20%). Claim rates related to COB and exposure to harmful substances and environments were highest among those 18-24 years old, with claim rates of 313.5 and 25.9 per 10,000 FTE, respectively. STFs increased with age, with the highest claim rates for those 55-64 years old (94.2 claims per 10,000 FTE). Overexertion claim rates increased and then declined with age, with the highest claim rate for those 35-44 years old (87.3 per 10,000 FTE). While younger workers had higher injury rates, older workers had higher proportions of lost-time claims and higher costs per claim. The total cost per FTE was highest for those 45-54 years old ($1,122 per FTE). Conclusion: The variation in rates of injury types by age suggests that age-specific prevention strategies may be useful.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.158-163
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• 2024

Objectives: The present paper aimed to examine whether an aging workforce is associated with an increase in work-related fatal injuries and to explore the underlying reasons for this potential increase. Material and methods: Aged workers were defined as those who were at least 55 years old. Work-related fatalities were assessed in aged and young workers who were registered with the workers' compensation system in 2021 in the Republic of Korea. Total waged workers, based on raw data from the Local Area Labor Force Survey in 2021, were used as the denominator to estimate the work-related fatality rates. Results: Most work-related fatalities in the aged workers occurred among individuals working in the "construction sector" (58.9%), those with "elementary occupations (unskilled workers)" (46.1%), and those with the employment status of "daily worker" (60.8%). The estimated incidence (0.973/10,000) of work-related fatalities among aged workers was about four times higher than that (0.239/10,000) among younger workers. "Falling," "collision," "struck by an object," and "trip and slip" were more frequent types of work-related fatalities among aged workers relative to young workers. The category of "buildings, structures, and surfaces" was a more frequent cause of work-related fatalities among aged workers than among young workers. Conclusions: Aged workers had a higher incidence of work-related fatalities than young workers. Frequent engagement in precarious employment and jobs, coupled with the greater physical vulnerability of aged workers, were likely causes of their higher level of work-related fatal injuries.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Building Construction Conference
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• 2017.11a
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• pp.58-59
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• 2017

As the construction industry has been increasingly complex, aging workers, hard-working avoiding young generation, foreign workers having language problem for the past decades, delivering of construction qualified workers has been a rising problem. This misalignment between the complex jobs and the number of skilled workers will continue to be in issue that the construction industry will face for following decades. Construction field workers who are working outside in uncontrollable condition unlike manufacturing industry are exposed to easily construction safety accident. There are so many efforts to prevent and control the construction accident. However, the relationships between the construction works and construction safety accident has not been well dealt and investigated based on objective accident data except for the qualitative study through interview, delphi and so on. Therefore this study analyzes job risk matrix exposed to safety accidents based on statistic data for 20 years from Korean Occupational Safety & Health Agency in order to prevent the construction field accidents.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.37-47
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• 2017

The proportion of elderly people over 50 years old in the total population of Korea increased from 29.2% in 2010 to 34.8% in 2015. As a result, the proportion of construction workers over 50 years old compared to the total construction workers increased from 20.1% in 2010 to 27.0% in 2015. In this aging society, the construction industry has faithfully carried out the business objectives and budget execution of measures to prevent disasters against elderly workers, but there was a limit to the fundamental prevention of disasters. Because the countermeasures for the prevention of construction disaster are considered on all ages rather than elderly workers. This study investigates the safety and health status of elderly workers at construction sites and suggests the plans to reduce disaster. In particular, to reduce disasters of rapidly growing elderly workers, the authors reviewed the related literature and safety regulations, statistics on the causes of industrial accidents, statistics on the status of industrial accidents, and applied to 3,549 workers who participated directly in the construction activities. The authors surveyed the actual situation of safety and health, presented the comprehensive disaster reduction measures by analyzing the current status and problems of disaster prevention projects. If the countermeasures proposed in this paper can be reflected in the actual policy, it is expected that the countermeasures will be possible to reduce the disaster of the elderly workers at the construction site, which is gradually increasing.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.125-130
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• 2012

According to the Korea National Statistical Office data in 2010, the population over ages of 65 years would possess to 11.3% whole population of Korea in 2011 denoting Korea is already in the aging society. Old age is associated with inevitable time-dependent losses in physical capabilities. However the maintenance of physical capabilities is essential for continuing independence in old age. The work ability index(WAI) was constructed to reveal how well a worker is able to perform his work. This study focused on the discovery of an industrial and age-related influences on the work ability and job stress of workers in the shipbuilding, house managing, apartment construction industry. For this, the study conducted a job stress test using the Korean Occupational Stress Questionnaire Short Form, and employee performance evaluations using the Work Ability Index (WAI) of the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health (FIOH) on 3,228 workers in the shipbuilding, house managing and apartment construction industry. SPSS 12.0 K statistics program was used for statistics analysis and significance was verified with the Kruskal-Wallis test, a corporate body of nonparametric statistical analysis. As a result, employee performance had significant differences, depending on age, an industrial and years of service. The mean WAI score of the shipbuilding industry was lower than that of the other industry. Additionally, it was found that employee work ability decreased more as job stress increased.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.503-509
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• 2021

Objectives: The utility of the system was analyzed by applying the smart safety technology system to the aging pipe rehabilitation facility construction classified as a confined space. Methods: Smart safety management system was applied to a site where the aging pipe rehabilitation work was in progress. The working environment was measured for 25 days, and the toxic gas saturation was analyzed according to the working time and working place. Results: Based on the measured results, two characteristic environmental changes in the confined space were confirmed. First, when working inside an aging pipe, the tendency of carbon dioxide saturation increases with working time and the number of workers. Second, oxygen decreases when working in a space away from the entrance. Conclusions: Various applications of smart safety technology have been confirmed based on the measured data, and this is expected to be useful for environmental characteristic analysis and safety management when applied to a confined space composed with various conditions in the future.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Building Construction
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.273-279
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• 2019

Safety sign panel has been used in construction sites to assure the safety of the workers. Such safety panel can be categorized as 4 different signals, such as prohibition, warning, indication, and information. Each of the categorized item must follow lawful which is specifically designated for its own purposes, on its color and the shape. However, the color and shape of the safety sign panels that have been used in construction sites are not found to follow the suggested lawful requirement, and such differences are originated from safety merchandise production company or vendor, and construction company. In this study, samples of safety sign panels were obtained from various construction sites in Republic of Korea then the colors of such samples were measured, analyzed, and compared. According to the results, colors of the safety sign panels were out of the lawful requirement due to the aging and surface contamination of the safety sign panel. Frequent maintenance on the safety sign panel is therefore necessary. In addition, steel panels that were used in the construction sites were found to be unsuitable to meet the lawful requirements. In order to the color requirements on safety sign panel, it is recommended for Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency to provide standard reference sample for each material used to produce safety sign panel, to distribute them to the producer and construction sites, and to supervise overall system.