• Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology & Nutrition
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.94-99
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• 2015

Purpose: A mother's working environment is believed to be a major determinant of exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) practice. We aimed to define the influence of a facility dedicated to breastfeeding and a breastfeeding support program at the workplace on breastfeeding practice. Methods: A cross-sectional study was performed in five workplaces. The inclusion criteria were female workers whose last child was between 6 and 36 months old. Observational data were obtained and a questionnaire was filled out. The World Health Organization definition for EBF was used. Results: Data from 186 subjects (74 office workers and 112 factory workers) were collected. Just over half (52%) of the mothers were between 20 and 46 years old, 75.3% had graduated from high school and university, 12.9% had more than two children and 36.0% owned a house. The prevalence of EBF during the last 6 months was 32.3%. A proper dedicated breastfeeding facility was available for 21.5% of the mothers, but only 7.5% had been in contact with a breastfeeding support program. The presence of a dedicated breastfeeding facility increased EBF practice almost threefold, by an odds ratio (OR) of 2.74 and a 95% confidence interval (CI) of 1.34-5.64 (p<0.05). Knowledge of the breastfeeding support program increased EBF practice by almost six times (OR, 5.93; 95% CI, 1.78-19.79) (p<0.05). Conclusion: Our findings suggest that Governments should make it obligatory for employers to offer a breastfeeding support program and a dedicated breastfeeding facility at the workplace as these simple measures significantly increase EBF.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.50-62
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• 2003

Exposure to metalworking fluids (MWFs) has significantly been associated with cancer developed in multi-organs, respiratory diseases and skin diseases. Several carcinogens to humans or animals are contained in MWFs. They have been reported to be mineral oils, polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), formaldehyde and N-nitrosodiethanolamine (NDELA). The great hazards of MWF have forced the advanced country including United States to regulate carcinogens contained in MWF. In 2001, American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIHs) regarded MWF mist as suspected carcinogen to human (A2) and added it to “Notice of Intended Change (NIC)” list of 2001. In spite of the fact that much MWF has widely been used in many industries using machines, Korea has no legal actions for management of MWF. What is worse, even toxicity such as Carcinogenicity has not been reported. KS (Korean Standards) lists 7 advices of MWF but it does net state the hazards to health. It is very hard to control or minimize worker's exposure to MWF containing many carcinogens. Prier to the introduction of MWF to workplace, it is the most effective measure to regulate carcinogens below a certain level. Regulation on the content of PAH seems to be necessary because less amount of PAH in mineral oils improves the quality of MWF. Also, addition of nitrosating groups to MWF should be prohibited to minimize worker's exposure to NDELA. Employers and manufacturers should indicate the Carcinogenicity of all carcinogens in MWFs in Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) in order fer workers to recognize Carcinogenicity. Legal actions have to be taken to protect workers from health hazards due to exposure to MWF by further investigation on MWF.

• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.203-232
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• 1999

This study reviewed the, reference of health promotion program and investigated the status of health promotion program at work sites in U.S.A. Good health promotion program is essential for both employees and employers to reduce morbidity rate, to promote productivity and to enhance quality of life and so on. Health promotion aimed at modifying unhealthy life-styles by building awareness, knowledge, skills, and interpersonal support. And health promotion cycle is resemblance to the plan-do-check-act. The major contents of this study are briefed following as : 1) Links between life-style, environment, and health 2) Effect of work sites health promotion effort 3) Prevalence and contents of work site health promotion programs 4) Health promotion process 5) Program framework and structure 6) Stages in the health promotion cycle 7) Approaches for modifying organizational stressors In addition this, the survey was conducted to aim diagnosing the status of health promotion p개gram in work sites in Korea. The main finding-outs are summarized as follows: 1) In 4 large size work sites, there are working with 1 doctor in all work sites, 1 nurse per 3,000 employees and other health related professionals. They have clinic office(4 work sites), gymnasium(2 work sites), and other many facilities like physical therapy center. And only one company have a wellness clinic center. All employees use to exercise health gymnastics in terms of 5 minutes regularly 2 times in a day. 2) In 4 middle size work sites, there are no doctor, 1 nurse and 1 nutritionist in all work sites. They have also clinic, physical therapy center(1 work site), and all employees exercise health gymnastics regularly 2 times in a day too.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.185-194
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• 2013

Purpose: This study was to explore situations that might put the middle-aged Korean-Chinese female migrant workers at risk for work-related musculoskeletal diseases (WMSDs). At the development phase of a continuing health project, the study aimed to clarify health promotion program needs of the migrant population. Methods: A qualitative description research design was used with three focus groups of 23 Korean-Chinese female migrant workers. Each focus group interview was conducted for 70-minutes using semi-structured interview guidelines. The data were analyzed using directed qualitative content analysis techniques. Results: The majority of the participants were household workers and their work included heavy material handling, standing for a long time, and working in awkward postures. They experienced discrimination from employers, lack of control at work, limitations in open-communication, job insecurity, and acculturation. They had needs to have health promotion programs for preventing and managing chronic diseases, depression and menopause as well as WMSDs. Conclusion: The participants were situated in work environments with physical demanding tasks, acculturative and job-related stress and lack of opportunities to participate in health promotion programs. It is suggested to develop a comprehensive program to better meet the needs of middle-aged Korean-Chinese female migrant workers rather than targeting the reduction of WMSDs.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.75-110
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• 2003

It is urgent to systematically understand vocational training and qualification systems in advanced nations in order to evaluate and reform the Korean counterparts. In the British case, the system has been transformed from the market-led one to the state-led one while the German system is still classified as a corporatistic one. This structural difference is crucial to understand their performances and the German one won a relatively more positive evaluation in its performance. However, the structure and function of the German system has lately revealed numerous limitations in face of the political unification and long duration of economic recessions. This study shows that those differences in structural and functional features and recent developments of the systems in two nations are closely associated with their differences in educational philosophies and occupational cultures, roles of the state and employers, and operation mechanisms of training courses and vocational qualifications systems. Understanding those national differences raises a fundamental question on the hasty prescription of some domestic studies that a few policies in the foreign systems must be implanted to reform the Korean counterpart without understanding the fundamental difference between the domestic and those foreign systems.

• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.531-546
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• 2005

This study is to examine current child care support policies and their limitations and to make some suggestions by means of statistics and previous literature. Major findings are as follows: First, As the women have younger children, the effect is more negative. Second, a maternity leave of Korea is 90 days, which is below ILO standard. Moreover, it is not well supported by the companies they work for. Third, the increasing number of men has spent a paternity leave since the pertinent law was enforced in 2001. The rate of spending the leave, however, is not as high as expected, because it has not yet been decided whether the leave would be paid or not. Lastly, the number of the employer-supporting child care center is rather few due to the legal standard of the facility and the expense that a company should cover. Only 46.5% of the companies that has been appointed to obligatorily establish the center now operate the facility. Therefore, child care support policies should be reformed or improved to help reduce married women's child care burden obviously hindering women from being employed, and this will consequently promote their economic activities. It is also urgently required to expand the application of the parental leave in terms of both object and scope. It is important that employers and employees get ready to compromise each other on the wage issue during the leave. In addition, the flexibility in period and form of the parental leave and the connection of working places with local community for better child care service must be taken into consideration.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.182-192
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• 2014

Objectives: The aim of this study is to analyze the current status of possession of measurement and analytical instruments at work environment monitoring organizations and their relationships with human resources, including the number of professional engineers and evaluation scores resulting from evaluation programs in 2012. Materials: Data for measurement and analytical instruments were gathered by inspectors who had been assigned by the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency(KOSHA) and the Ministry of Employment and Labor(MoEL) during the evaluation program for 2012. Data for 11 monitoring instruments and nice pieces of analytical equipment were collected from 103 organizations. Additional data such as the type of service provides and the number of professional engineers employed were also recorded by the inspectors. Evaluation scores could be acquired from KOSHA. Results: Comprehensive Occupational Health Service Providers showed good operation quality, while University or Hospital Subsidiary and Work Environment Monitoring Organizations recorded relatively poor results. Evaluation scores correlated well with the possession of measurement instruments and human resources for each organization. High yields provided by professional engineers also showed statistically-associated contributions to evaluation scores and monitoring instrument possession. Compared with monitoring instruments, the amount of analytical equipment had little positive impact on organizations' competence. Conclusions: The evaluation results for domestic monitoring organizations revealed that human resources, possession of instruments, and the quality of employees were critical factors for operating the corporations. Each organization should give considerable effort to improving their ability to strengtheninternal quality, resulting in high-yield production for workers and employers by providing improved workplace monitoring services.

• Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.87-95
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• 2001

This study was conducted to investigate nutritional knowledge, dietary attitudes, and dietary behaviors of adult women, and to examine if these characteristics were different by acne status. Subjects were 106 adult women residing in Seoul recruited from clients and employers at skin care centers, and housewives from apartment complexes. Surrey instrument was adapted or modified based on literature review and dietary intakes were assessed using 24-hour recalls for two days and CAN-pro. All data was statistically analyzed using x$^2$test and ANOVA. When examined by acne status, 41.5% of subjects were categorized into acne group, 20.8% were as ex-acne group, and 37.7% as no-acne group. Parental experience of acne was significantly related to acne status(p〈 0.01). Education, employmental status, and smoking or drinking status were not related to acne status. Subjects had a moderate level of nutritional knowledge(72.7 point) and the nutritional knowledge store was not significantly different by acne status. When examined by individual items, the groups showed significant difference on the items regarding vitamin C and necessity of carbohydrates(p 〈 0.05). Subjects showed favorable dietary attitudes. Although the acne group showed more favorable attitudes on the importance of nutrition on acne, the overall dietary attitudes of the acne group were not significantly different from the ex-acne group or no-acne group. Similarly only small differences were noticed in dietary behaviors or nutrient intakes by acne status. Cholesterol consumption was hitgher in the no-acne group than in the acne group or ex-acne group(p 〈 0.01). The intakes of energy, iron, and calcium was much below the RDA in three groups. Although there were not many significant differences in nutritional knowledge, dietary attitudes, and dietary behaviors by acne status, this study provided some baseline information regarding study variables by acne status.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.13 no.12
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• pp.966-973
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• 2013

It has been frequently asked the question not only by academicians but also by practitioners whether employment flexibility can be compatible with employment stability. This study tries to find the answer by investigating the German model of employment flexibility practices and job stability policies. The German model of employment flexibility is mainly based on working-time accounts and short-time work programs. It is found that social partnership and government support have played a crucial role to stabilize German labour market. Workers, employers, and government have harmoniously interplayed in order for overcoming the economic hardship. Adapting the German experience of overcoming economic turbulence by introducing employment flexibilization can help Korean firms. However, it is important to recognize that there are some differences in practices of labour relations, cultural and social background while applying the German practices.

• Journal of Engineering Education Research
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.102-114
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• 2009

This study investigates the performance of accreditation programs for engineering education in Korea using questionnaire. The survey includes workers who graduated the accreditation programs, supervisors of the workplace of the graduates, and professors or related persons of the universities. Overall the results shows that related three groups of individuals evaluates the program positively. The accreditation programs have positive effect on the labor market entrance and performances in the workplace estimated by earnings. Compared with major courses, courses of liberal arts and social science needs revision to have more positive response from graduates and employers. Also the program has to give more attention to strengthen the competencies related to professionals and ethics related with job, and adjustment in the work environment.