• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
• /
• v.25 no.2
• /
• pp.121-128
• /
• 2023

Construction industry is considered as one of the most high-risk industries for work-related injuries and fatalities, accounting for more than half of fatalities in Korea. Advanced countries have recognized the critical role of designers in preventing construction accidents and have established regulations on design for safety. In line with this, the Korean government have also implemented regulations that require owners and designers to review the safety of design outcomes. However, it has been observed that designers face challenges in identifying hazards and integrating design solutions at the design stage mainly due to their shortage of required knowledge and skills. This study aimed to examine design solutions that can be applied to prevent fall accidents in the construction industry, and to establish a relationship between these solutions and fatal fall accidents occurred over the past three years in Korea. This study also analyzed the relationships of four variables (construction type, cost, work type, and fall location) with design solutions. The results indicated that all four variables have significant relationships with design solutions, with fall location showing the strongest relationship. The design solutions and their relationships with fatal fall accidents identified in this study can be utilized in identifying hazard and integrating design solutions to ensure design for safety.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
• /
• v.25 no.1
• /
• pp.62-64
• /
• 2010

Since 1990 in South Korea, the considerable concern for the safety of construction sights has been increased due to serious accidents. There have been numerous big improvements in preventing the accidents by strengthening legal enforcement and by continuing to emphasize the safety management. Further, the safety standards and criteria for temporary constructional work have been enacted and established in order to maintain safe work environments in temporary construction and structure settings. However, the death rate from fall accidents is still high in the temporary constructional and structural settings in comparison to other work places in construction. According to the analysis of accidents in the field of construction between 2000 and 2007, the death rate from fall accidents in the temporary constructional settings was highest. In addition, there have been more fall accidents in the work setting by small or medium construction enterprises rather than large enterprises due to the relative lack of the safety management. Thus, in this study, the analysis of the causes of fall accidents in the temporary constructional and structural settings between 2000 and 2007 was conducted. Moreover, a survey study was carried out in order to investigate further causes based on the analysis. Finally, this study was also conducted in order to provide basic information and knowledge about the prevention of future accidents.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
• /
• v.8 no.2
• /
• pp.21-32
• /
• 2005

Questionnaire survey from 101 visitors and 77 specialists was carried out to establish the management plan on landscapes of the artificial structure constructed in valley within Bughansan National Park. When comparison was made between ground sill work structure and valley landscape, visitor group responded to the highest scores in valley landscape after planting of vine species in the bottom of the constructure, while specialist group responded to valley landscape after the removal of the constructure. When it made a comparison between revetment work constructure and valley landscape, visitor group responded to highest scores in valley landscape after planting of vine species in the top of the constructure, while specialist group responded to valley landscape after replacing concrete revetment by stone revetment constructure. When it made a comparison between fall work constructure and valley landscape, both groups responded to the highest scores in valley landscape after the removal of the constructure. According to the valley landscape analysis, artificial constructures built in water channel should be matched to adjacent landscape with the removal of concrete constructure. The slope of water channel should be considered to build fall work constructure.

• Safety and Health at Work
• /
• v.3 no.3
• /
• pp.192-198
• /
• 2012

Objectives: Slip and fall accidents in the workplace are one of the top causes of work related fatalities and injuries. Previous studies have indicated that fall risk was related to postural and dynamic stability. However, the usage of this theoretical relationship was limited by laboratory based measuring instruments. The current study proposed a new method for stability assessment by use of inertial measurement units (IMUs). Methods: Accelerations at different body parts were recorded by the IMUs. Postural and local dynamic stability was assessed from these measures and compared with that computed from the traditional method. Results: The results demonstrated: 1) significant differences between fall prone and healthy groups in IMU assessed dynamic stability; and 2) better power of discrimination with multi stability index assessed by IMUs. Conclusion: The findings can be utilized in the design of a portable screening or monitoring tool for fall risk assessment in various industrial settings.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
• /
• v.24 no.6
• /
• pp.136-143
• /
• 2009

The injuries as a result of fall accidents is the one of the most common kind of injuries in Korea, especially fall from height is the top most common kind for fatal injuries. Futhermore, the number of fall injuries in manufacturing industry has been steadily increasing from 2000 to 2007. In 2007 the number of fall fatal injuries increased 10.6 % in comparison with the number in 2006. These numbers are 6~17 times higher than those for foreign countries such as the U.K and the USA. So, it is needed to make a study to reduce these numbers for manufacturing industry. To get the goals, we did research as followings. First, this study analyzed statistics by industry, by fall height, by common agent and so on to gain an insight into real aspect of fall injuries. It showed that ladder is the commonly cited agent for manufacturing industry, and 3 risky activities ; the ladder work, the load/unload work, and the maintenance work. Secondly, this study made a survey of manufacturing workers for their understandings of the most 3 risky activities. It showed that 'tendency to work easily' and 'difficulty of applying measures due to inherent working conditions' are main reasons for workers not to implement the preventive measures against the fall accidents. Thirdly, this study tested the slip characteristics of ladder base and lungs. The tests were done based on ANSI standard and KS. In addition to the standard condition, this study performed slip tests in wet and sandy conditions and compared the results with the those of standard condition. It showed that friction coefficient is standard condition > wet condition > sandy condition, and the friction coefficient of ladder for sandy condition is measured to be reduced by 63.9% compared with that for standard condition. Finally, this study developed safety work models for using of portable ladders in consideration of the safety standards of foreign countries such as the U.K, the USA, and the Australia.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
• /
• v.15 no.2
• /
• pp.333-343
• /
• 2015

The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors that affect the fall prevention awareness of care-givers working at long-term care hospitals. A convenience sampling method was used to select care-givers who worked at 7 different long term care hospitals which were located in D city and N city. Data were collected from July 2014 to August 2014. 200 data were used for analysis out of 215 data which were collected. The hierarchical regression analysis reveals the following results: Firstly, the effects of care-givers' education level, certificate status, period of work experience and fall-related learning hours on their fall prevention awareness level were statistically significant. Secondly, among fall prevention health beliefs, perceived benefit, perceived disability, perceived sensitivity and self-efficacy were positively related to the level of fall prevention awareness. Thirdly, while such factors as perceived benefit, perceived sensitivity and self-efficacy showed positive effects on the fall prevention awareness, the period of work experience had negative effects. The regression model shows the power of explanation of 31.7 percents. In conclusion, the study suggests a fine-tuned program to improve care-givers' fall prevention awareness in a way of promoting fall prevention self-efficacy, perceived benefits and perceived sensitivity while considering the care-givers' period of work experience.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
• /
• v.16 no.3
• /
• pp.55-62
• /
• 2014

During five years (Year 2009~2013), Total victims of 72 %(81,560 people) and those 50.6 %(1,258 people) of death accident occurs in small scale construction site which operate 2 million USD less construction budget. Especially, falling death accident account for 785 people, in the share of 33.2 %(261 people) death disaster takes due to defect of original cause materials. The major safety issues in small scale work place take place while scaffold installation, disassembling, work-plate improper installation or non-professional skills of workers. Furthermore, labor subcontract systems make small construction site shortage of resources. Those workers regard work-plate as unnecessary and consumables supplies. Because of that most of workers use unsafe workplace in most construction site. Therefore, in order to prevent falling accident occurring in small scale work site, government should organize related regulations such as "Work site safety construction method" and then expands education support, financial aid, and sourcing safety supplies for work plate which offer broad variety experiences. Also, introduce certificate solutions for various work plates to improve safety function such as anchoring type method and anti sliding function.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
• /
• v.35 no.3
• /
• pp.155-163
• /
• 2016

Objective: This study aims to draw the characteristics of occupational accidents occurred in cabling work, and assess accident severity based on occupational injury data. Background: Accident factors and accident risk are different by the place of work in cabling work. Field managers require information on accident prevention that can be easily understood by workers. However, there has been a lack of studies that focus on cabling work in Korea. Method: This study classifies 450 injured persons caused in cabling work by process, and analyzes the characteristics of occupational injuries from the aspects of age, work experience and accident type. This study also analyzes accident frequency and severity of injury. Results: Results show that preparing/finishing (33.3%) was the most common type of cabling process in injuries, followed by maintenance (28.4%), routing/income (23.1%) and wiring/installation (15.1%) process. The critical incidents in the level of risk management were falls from height in the routing/incoming process, and falls from height in the maintenance process. And, incidents ranked as 'High' level of risk management were slips and trips, fall from height and vehicle incident in the preparing/finishing process, and fall from height in the wiring/installation process. Conclusion and Application: The relative frequency of accident and its severity by working process serve as important information for accident prevention, and are critical for determining priorities in preventive measures.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
• /
• v.10 no.1
• /
• pp.23-28
• /
• 1991

A major inhibition of past work in a slip/fall accident study has been due to the lack of a facility and a methodology to experimentally investigate such behavior without expowting human subjects to the natural danger of injury resulting from a fall. In order to carry out a slip/fall research, a unique facility must be created specially to investigate falling and slipping behavior. One component of this facility will be used to focus a research towards experimental investigations of the basic mechanisms involved in falls. Especially, this compo- nent must be designed, developed, and fabricated to provide passive, reactive support at the point of loss of ba- lance. This component must allow both normal and reduced friction surfaces to be designated to investigate human falling in the experimental conditions. This study will address how a fall arresting system was designed and it would be implemented in actual case of a slip/fall study.

• International Journal of Safety
• /
• v.10 no.1
• /
• pp.10-15
• /
• 2011

In Japan, protective measures to reduce falls from scaffolds have been strictly applied within industry safety guidelines, and such measures have significantly decreased fatal accidents due to falls from scaffolds. However, the rate of fatal accidents from falls is still high in the construction industries. In order to examine further countermeasures to reduce such falls, the Japan Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare established a committee in our institute. That committee$\acute{i}$s work experimentally confirmed the effectiveness of using plastic sheets as a covering around scaffolds to protect against falls of construction materials (a method widely used in Japan). However, the workers fell from the space between the work platform and the plastic sheets very occasionally. Based on those results, the plastic sheets were improved for fall protection from the space, and the effect of the improved sheets was confirmed experimentally.