• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.231-236
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• 2017

Vital to the prevention of work-related ill-health (WRIH) is the availability of good quality data regarding WRIH burden and risks. Physician-based surveillance systems such as The Health and Occupation Research (THOR) network in the UK are often established in response to limitations of statutory, compensation-based systems for addressing certain epidemiological aspects of disease surveillance. However, to fulfil their purpose, THOR and others need to have methodologic rigor in capturing and ascertaining cases. This article describes how data collected by THOR and analogous systems can inform WRIH incidence, trends, and other determinants. An overview of the different strands of THOR research is provided, including methodologic advancements facilitated by increased data quantity/quality over time and the value of the research outputs for informing Government and other policy makers. In doing so, the utility of data collected by systems such as THOR to address a wide range of research questions, both in relation to WRIH and to wider issues of public and social health, is demonstrated.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.134-139
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• 2010

Objectives: The lung cancer mortality in Korea has increased remarkably during the last 20 years, and has been the first leading cause of cancer-related deaths since 2000. The aim of the current study was to examine the time trends of occupational lung cancer and carcinogens exposure during the period 2006-2009 in South Korea, by assessing the proportion of occupational burden. Methods: We defined occupational lung cancer for surveillance, and developed a reporting protocol and reporting website for the surveillance of occupational lung cancer. The study patients were chosen from 9 participating university hospitals in the following 7 areas: Seoul, Incheon, Wonju, Daejeon, Daegu, Busan, and Gwangju. Results: The combined proportion of definite and probable occupational lung cancer among all lung cancers investigated in this study was 10.0%, 8.6%, 10.7%, and 15.8% in the years 2006 to 2009, respectively, with an average of 11.7% over the four-year study period. The main carcinogens were asbestos, crystalline silica, radon, polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), diesel exhaust particles, chromium, and nickel. Conclusion: We estimated that about 11.7% of the incident lung cancer was preventable. This reveals the potential to considerably reduce lung cancer by intervention in occupational fields.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.225-229
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• 2021

Background: The socioeconomic burden of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) is significant, and kitchen work is a high-risk occupation for MSDs due to the intensive manual workload and repetitive movements that are involved. However, there are very few studies on MSDs and rest breaks as a workplace intervention among kitchen workers. This study examined the relationship between insufficient rest breaks and increased MSD risk among Korean kitchen workers. Methods: Sociodemographic and occupational factors of 1,909 kitchen workers were collected from the 3rd-4th Korean Working Conditions Survey data. Five items on rest breaks at work were categorized into two groups, "sufficient" and "insufficient." The number of MSDs and work-related MSDs (WMSDs), an outcome variable, was obtained from the sum of MSDs/WMSDs in three anatomical sites (back, neck, and upper limb, lower limb). The association between rest breaks and MSDs was estimated using zeroinflated negative binomial analyses, with adjustments for age, education level, and weekly working hours, and the analyses were stratified by sex. Results: After adjustment, significant associations were found between insufficient rest breaks and an increased risk of MSDs (odds ratio [OR] 1.68 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.11-2.54) and WMSDs (OR 1.40 95% CI 1.01-1.96) among female kitchen workers. Insufficient rest breaks were significantly associated with MSDs in female kitchen workers in all three anatomical sites. Conclusion: This study emphasizes the need for rest breaks as a workplace intervention for preventing MSDs in kitchen workers. Further studies to reveal the causality of this relationship are required.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.86 no.2
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• pp.102-110
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• 2023

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has become a major health burden worldwide, with over 600 million confirmed cases and 6 million deaths by 15 December 2022. Although the acute phase of COVID-19 management has been established, the long-term clinical course and complications due to the relatively short outbreak is yet to be assessed. The current COVID-19 pandemic is causing significant morbidity and mortality around the world. Interestingly, epidemiological studies have shown that fatality rates vary considerably across different countries, and men and elderly patients are at higher risk of developing severe diseases. There is increasing evidence that COVID-19 infection causes neurological deficits in a substantial proportion to patients suffering from acute respiratory distress syndrome. Furthermore, lack of physical activity and smoking are associated with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) susceptibility. We should therefore explore why lack of physical activity, smoking, etc causing a population more susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection, and mechanism involved. Thus, in this review article, we summarize epidemiological evidence related to risk factors and lifestyle that affect COVID-19 severity and the mechanism involved. These risk factors or lifestyle interventions include smoking, cardiovascular health, obesity, exercise, environmental pollution, psychosocial social stress, and diet.

• Journal of Environmental Policy
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.75-100
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• 2013

Health damages such as pneumoconiosis and kidney damage, caused by environmental hazardous factors are being reported in health impact assessment conducted on environmentally vulnerable areas, including cement factories and refineries. Current legal system for relieving the environmental victims is not effective enough because the environmental health act does not specify the environmental hazardous factors to be considered for the relief. The aim of this study is to examine the problems of the existing system by making empirical analysis on health damages and afflicted people as well as on cases when afflicted people were able to be covered by remedy system. The results show that, insufficiencies of the relief system are due to the following reasons: First, current Environmental Health Act does not act well as a remedy system. Second, due to its unique nature of environmental health damage, it is hard to identify and prove the cause of health damage and unlawful actions of violators in the process of environmental dispute conciliation and lawsuits against polluters. This paper suggests following solutions on above mentioned problems. First, in defining the range and definition of environmental diseases, negative system should be used alongside with the current positive system. Second, we suggest adding the nature of public law to relief system, in order to ease the legal burden of proof. Third, in case when it is hard to identify the polluters and one cannot expect reliefs for their damage, it is possible to elevate the effectiveness of the relief measure by expanding scope of the search for possible environmental hazardous factors that caused the health damage. It is urgent to improve the relief system so as to secure the environmental rights of Koreans.

• Toxicological Research
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.253-261
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• 2008

Allergic asthma is a worldwide public health problem and a major socioeconomic burden disease. It is a chronic inflammatory disease marked by airway eosinophilia and goblet cell hyperplasia with mucus hypersecretion. Mouse models have proven as a valuable tool for studying human asthma. In the present report we describe a comparison of mouse asthma models. The experiments were designed as follows: Group I was injected with ovalbumin (OVA, i.p.) on day 1 and challenged with 1% OVA (aerosol exposure) on days $14{\sim}21$. Group II was injected on day 1, 14 and aerosol-immunized on days $14{\sim}21$. Group III was injected on day 1, 14 and immunized by 1% OVA aerosol on days $18{\sim}21$. We assessed asthma induction by determining the total number of white blood cells (WBC) and eosinophils as well as by measuring cytokine levels in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF). In addition, we evaluated the histopathological changes of the lungs and determined the concentration of immunoglobulin E (IgE) in serum. Total WBC, eosinophils, Th2 cytokines (IL-4, IL-13) and IgE were significantly increased in group I relative to the other groups. Moreover, histopathological studies show that group I mice show an increase in the infiltration of inflammatory cell-in peribronchial and perivascular areas as well as an overall increase in the number of mucus-containing goblet cells relative to other groups. These data suggest that group I can be a useful model for the study of human asthma pathobiology and the evaluation of existing and novel therapeutic agents.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.30-41
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• 2019

Objectives: The effects of particulate matter and ozone on health are being reported in a number of studies. These effects are likely to be stronger on the elderly population, but studies in this regard are scarce. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of particulate matter ${\leq}2.5{\mu}m$ and ozone on the acute health status of the elderly population. Methods: In order to analyze the health status of the elderly population, the NHIS-Senior Cohort data was used. In this study of people 60 years or older in Seoul, the number of outpatient visits and ER visits between 2002 and 2013 were calculated. Each disorder and the lag effect were analyzed separately. Particulate matter and ozone were analyzed using both the single exposure model and the adjusted multi-exposure model. Results: In the single exposure analysis with PM2.5 as the exposure variable, with each increase of $10{\mu}g/m^3$, the number of outpatient visits increased by 1.0081 times, vascular disease 1.0065 times, chronic pulmonary disease 1.0086 times, and diabetes 1.0055 times. In the multi-exposure model adjusting for ozone, the number of outpatient visits increased by 1.0066 times. There was a one-day lag effect and 1.0066 times increase between PM2.5 and ER visits in the multi-exposure model and 1.0057 times when adjusted for ozone (p value <0.10). There was a one-day lag effect in all multi-exposure models with ozone as the main variable, and when the particulate matter was adjusted, there was a one-day delay and 1.0143 times increase in ER visits. Conclusions: In our study, an increase in the number of outpatient and ER visits in the elderly population in accordance with the increase in PM2.5 and ozone was found. The association found in our study could also produce a socioeconomic burden. Future studies need to be performed in regards to younger populations and other air pollutants.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.18.1-18.7
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• 2022

According to long-term projections, by 2030, the world's population is predicted to reach 7.5 billion individuals, and there will be roughly 27 million new cancer cases diagnosed. The global burden of breast cancer (BC) is expected to rise. According to the Ministry of Health-Iraqi Cancer Registry, cancer is the second largest cause of death after cardiovascular disease. This study investigated the interleukin-18 (IL18) single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) -607C/A rs1946518 and -137G/C rs187238 using the sequence-specific amplification-polymerase chain reaction approach. Regarding the position -607C/A, there was a highly significant difference between the observed and expected frequencies in patients and controls (χ² = 3.16 and χ² = 16.5), respectively. The AA and CA genotypes were associated with significantly increased BC risk (odds ratio [OR], 3.68; p = 0.004 and OR, 2.83; p = 0.04, respectively). Women with the A allele had a 5.03-fold increased susceptibility to BC. The C allele may be a protective allele against BC (OR, 0.19). Although position -137G/C showed no significant differences in the CC genotype distribution (p = 0.18), the frequency of the CC genotype was significantly higher in patients than in controls. In contrast, patients had a significantly higher frequency of GC genotypes than controls (p = 0.04), which was associated with an increased risk of developing BC (OR, 2.63). The G allele frequency was significantly lower in patients than in controls (55.0% vs. 76.2%, respectively). This SNP may be considered a common genotype in the Iraqi population, with the wild-type G allele having a protective function (OR, 0.19) and the mutant C allele having an environmental effect (OR, 2.63).

• 한국노년학
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.1239-1261
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• 2010

The main purposes of the study were to identify factors affecting health-related quality of life of elderly stroke survivors, and to suggest social work interventions for improving their quality of life. The participants were 328 elderly stroke survivors over 55 years old recruited from 18 long-term care hospitals and 13 nursing care facilities in Chung-Nam Province, Korea. The data was collected through a direct survey method from Dec. 16, 2008 to Jan. 17, 2009. Statistical analysis revealed that the overall health-related quality of life among participants was relatively low, especially in the social relationships domain. As a result of hierarchical multiple regression analysis, depression emerged as the most significant predictor of elderly stroke survivors' health-related quality of life, followed by financial burden in future, activities of daily living, acceptance of disability, comorbidity, and major financial supporter(spouse). Health-related quality of life of elderly stroke survivors in long-term care facilities was affected by a variety of variables from disease-related factors to environmental ones. Particularly psychosocial variables were the most powerful factors to predict HRQOL of elderly stroke survivors. Based on the results, social work implications were discussed in the context of developing clinical strategies to alleviate elderly stroke survivors' health-related quality of life in long-term care facilities. Living with chronic illness and disability is a great challenge to the elderly. Most of all long-term residence in care facilities can cause deterioration of quality of life in old age. From now on, studies on health-related quality of life of elderly with chronic illness and disability should be activated in social work field.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.11
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• pp.4705-4710
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• 2015

Background: Though a large proportion of cancer survivors are assumed to be commonly affected by sleep disturbance, few studies have focused on short sleep problems and its correlates among Korean cancer survivors. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of short sleep in adult cancer survivors from a nationwide population-based sample and to identify risk factors for short sleep duration. Materials and Methods: Based on the fourth and fifth Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (2007-2012), 1,045 cancer survivors and 33,929 non-cancer controls were analyzed. The prevalence of short sleep was compared between these two groups. Associations between short sleep and its correlates were evaluated using multiple logistic regression among cancer survivors: odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (95%CIs) were estimated after adjusting for sociodemographic factors, lifestyle factors, psychological conditions, and cancer-related factors. Results: About 8.1% of cancer survivors slept for less than 5 hours per day (6.2% men and 9.3% women), whereas this was the case for only 3.7% of non-cancer controls. Cancer survivors who had the lowest household income level showed a significantly higher likelihood for short sleep (adjusted OR 2.82, 95%CI 1.06-7.54). Self-reported poor health and depressive symptoms were found to be associated with significantly increased likelihood for short sleep in cancer survivors (adjusted OR 3.60, 95%CI 1.40-9.26 and adjusted OR 2.00, 95%CI 1.17-3.42). Gastric cancer survivors had a 3.97-fold increased risk for short sleep (95%CI 1.60-9.90). Conclusions: The prevalence of short sleep occurs at a high rate among the Korean cancer survivors, which may indicate a poorer quality of life and a higher risk of future complications in survivorship. Targeted interventions that can assist cancer survivors to cope with sleep disturbances as well as ensuring psychological stability are warranted to reduce the latent disease burden.