• Safety and Health at Work
• /
• v.2 no.1
• /
• pp.52-56
• /
• 2011

Objectives: The occupational accident rate was officially reported to be 0.77 per 100 workers in 2001 and 0.70 in 2009. The stagnant decrease in accident rate raises a question about the effectiveness of prevention activity because there have been active prevention efforts in the past 10 years. It is also necessary to know the exact status of occupational injuries to direct a prevention strategy. Methods: The author re-analyzed occupational injury statistics to find the reason for stagnant decreases in occupational injuries. Compensated occupational injuries cases were used to calculate fatal and non-fatal injury rates. Injuries from commuting accidents and sports activities were excluded as well as occupational diseases. The number of workers was adjusted to that of full time equivalent employees. Results: The fatal injury rate excluding injuries associated with commuting accidents, sports activities, and occupational diseases decreased from 12.59 in 2001 to 8.20 in 2009. In 2007, 67.5% of accidents that involved being caught in objects, which are mostly caused by machines and equipment, occurred in the manufacturing industry; this type of incident has decreased since 2001. The fatal and non-fatal injury rates in the manufacturing industry have continuously decreased while the rates in the service industry have not changed from 2001 to 2009. Non-fatal injuries might not be reported in many cases. The number of insured workers was underestimated as long working hours were not adjusted for in the reporting system. Conclusion: The occupational fatal injury rate has decreased and the non-fatal injury rate might have decreased during the last 10 years, although the statistics show stagnancy. The decrease of the injury rate was countervailed by various factors. Hence, the current accident rate does not reflect the actual situation of accidents in Korea. Korea needs to develop an improved system to more accurately calculate occupational fatal and non-fatal injury rates.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
• /
• v.20 no.3
• /
• pp.168-174
• /
• 2010

South Korea's industrial injuries are decreasing overall in the last 32 years. Nevertheless, the fatal occupational injury rate is still higher than in developed countries. This study was conducted to help prevention strategies of occupational injuries for the Republic of Korea. Fatal occupational injury rates were obtained from "Industrial Accident Analysis"of the Korean Ministry of Labor. Poisson regression was used to assess time trends. Socioeconomic indicators were obtained from the Korea Labor Institute and the Statistics Korea. Fatal occupational injury rates were adjusted by year, and Pearson correlation analysis was used to assess the relationship between the socio-economic indicators and occupational injuries. In 1975, fatal occupational injury rate was 54.8 per 100,000 workers. With somewhat up and down, it was decreased to 21.0 in 2006. An annual rate of change for the years 1975-2006 was - 1.83%, and for the years 2002-2006 was -5.02%. As economic growth rate, paricipation rate for the age less than 25 and hours of work per week or year increased, fatal occupational injury rate also increased. Conversely, as GDP per capita, paricipation rate or employment rate for female, paricipation rate for the age 25 or more, hourly compensation costs for production workers and services output as percent of GDP increased, fatal occupational injury rate decreased. By the development of safety techniques and the adoption of more legislative constraints, developed economy reduce occupational injuries. Conversely, economic growth may raise occupational injuries. Therefore, prevention strategies are needed to manage both of them. We need to make an effort to prevent occupational injuries due to not only sexual differences, but also job differences between male and female. Preventive strategies are needed to consider the characteristics of younger workers. Addition to wage, other appropriate variables for work condition should be considered together. Extending work hours is need to be regulated with systemic methods.

• International Journal of Safety
• /
• v.3 no.1
• /
• pp.47-52
• /
• 2004

Current OSH system was analyzed in this paper to explain why high fatal incidents and disasters are continuously repeated for recent years in Korea. It was found that we have Dichotomous Perceptional Misconception of prevention before accident and compensation after accident and there is a significant lack of proper feed­back reward system for OSH performance. It was assumed that no reduction of accident rate and fatality rate have not been achieved recently despite of a great effort and increased resource allocations. Some statistics for proving weak punishment were analyzed. In the current system, the will of administrative agency would have been very limited particularly in the legal aspects. The Industrial Safety and Health Act is not suitable to after-injury punishment for employer and/or corporate since it is based on a framework for enforcement of prevention. Based on these analyses, it was concluded that there was a need to consider a special law for Corporate Accountability for Fatal Accidents. Because it is necessary to consider seriously for introduction of a new legal system for after injury punishment to repair the current system where it was found lack of proper feedback system. Also, there was no proper sanction measures for corporate with the current OSH legal system, and the most urgent problem in OSH area is the high fatality rate. it is necessary to consider seriously for introduction of a new legal system for after injury punishment. Also, there is no proper sanction measures for corporate with the current OSH legal system, and the most urgent problem in OSH area is the high fatality rate.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
• /
• v.24 no.3
• /
• pp.39-46
• /
• 2022

This study has found the socio-economic factors that affect occupational accidents and measured the influence quantitatively. We built the panel data of 4 countries (Japan, Germany, the U.S., and the U.K.) and the analysis model counted on the fixed effect model to reflect the countries' differences. The fatal occupational injury rates in the analyzed countries had a statistically significant relationship with the level of per capita GDP, the proportion of the construction industry, the rate of male workers, annual average working hours, the rate of workers in manufacturing and construction industries, etc. The annual average working hours have a positive correlation with the fatal occupational injury rate. To reduce occupational accidents effectively, we should be monitoring and researching various factors that can affect the occurrence of occupational accidents such as worker characteristics, changing industrial structure, and changes in working hours.

• Safety and Health at Work
• /
• v.9 no.2
• /
• pp.184-191
• /
• 2018

Background: Due to an increasing number of workers aged 50 years and above, the number of those employed is also on the rise, and those workers aged 50 and over has exceeded 50% of the total fatal occupational injuries. Therefore, it is necessary to implement the selection and concentration by identifying the characteristics of high-risk groups necessary for an effective prevention against and reduction of fatal occupational injuries. Methods: This study analyzed the characteristics of high-risk groups and the occupational injury fatality rate per 10,000 workers among the workers aged 50 and over through a multi-dimensional analysis by sex, employment status of workers, industry and occupation by targeting 4,079 persons who died in fatal occupational injuries from January 2007 to December 12. Results: The share of the workers aged 50 years and above is increasing every year in the total fatal occupational injuries occurrence, and the high-risk groups include 'male workers' by sex, 'daily workers' by worker's status, 'craft and related-trades workers' by occupation, and 'mining' by industry. Conclusion: The most frequent causal objects of fatal occupational injuries of the workers aged 50 years and above are found out to be 'installment and dismantlement of temporary equipment and material on work platforms including scaffold' in the construction industry and 'mobile crane, conveyor belt and fork lifts' in the manufacturing industry.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
• /
• v.34 no.3
• /
• pp.83-88
• /
• 2019

The 7,993 cases of Survey Report of Fatal Industrial Accidents conducted jointly by the MEOL and the KOSHA for the recent seven years(2007-2013) were categorized according to personal and occupational characteristics, industry types, business sizes, job types, activities at the time accident, types of accidents, material agents(assailing materials), unsafe conditions, and unsafe acts. And it is found that among the 72.2 percent of fatal occupational accidents in the construction and manufacturing industries are caused by falling, sticking, bumping and being caught under objects & overturning. For this study, through the empirical analysis on causes of fatal industrial accidents, was used to identity high risk groups based on total data of 7,993 victims of occupational accidents. An annual fatal occupational injury (FOI) rate per 10,000 workers was about 0.47‱. The middle-aged group and the elderly group showed the highest FOI rates per 10,000 workers (0.73‱, 0.80‱), and the daily workers showed the highest FOI rate (1.46‱), and the craft and related trades workers showed the highest FOI rate (2.17‱). In case of industry type the mining industry (7.26‱) showed the highest FOI rate, followed by the sewerage, waste management, materials recovery and remediation activity industry (3.91‱) and the construction industry (2.71‱). The primary high risk target group that requires a strategy designed to reduce fatal occupation injuries caused by falling and bumping & contact(collision) is the construction industry, and the secondary high risk target group in the construction industry is classified as the equipment, machine operating and assembling workers in the construction industry, those aged 50 years old and above need the prevention measures against bumping & contact(collision) and being caught under an object & falling(objects), while those aged less than 50 years old need prevention measures against falling(persons).

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
• /
• v.18 no.1
• /
• pp.75-82
• /
• 2016

According to the statistics, occupational fatal injuries by the fork lifts were about 30 per year in whole industrial. Fork lifts are widely used in various parts of industries to improve the efficiency of the work. In this study, the current regulations to be adequate in industrial site have to be renew in order to prevent the fatal injuries by the fork lifts. Fatal injury analysis were conducted with several accident cases by the fork lifts. For each accident, the causes of the injuries were examined and proper safety measures were proposed. In this study, the fork lift showed a high fatality rate in industrial accidents and no detailed cause analysis of fatal accidents was conducted in terms of unsafe acts or conditions. First, fork lifts were the highest of the machines caused the accidents. In order to prevent fatal injuries by the fork lifts, the tarket was manufacturing industry. Second, the order of the cause of cognitive engineering agenda in the manufacture industrial was visibility, responsibility and affordance, and revision of acts was proposed. Third, there was not a lots of different points of human error between occurrence types and business sizes. Forth, number of fatalities by the attacker was more than by the inducer.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
• /
• v.37 no.3
• /
• pp.274-281
• /
• 2004

Objectives : This study was performed to investigate the injury rates and risk factors for preschool children in Daegu city and Kyungpook province. Method : A questionnaire survey about medically attended injuries during the preschool period was performed in nine primary schools located in Daegu city, Pohang city and Goryung County. The overall injury rate was estimated using person-year. The causes and patterns of the injuries, and their risk factors were examined. Result : A total of 469 medically attended injuries were reported in 330 of the 959 study subjects during the preschool period. The overall annual injury rate was 7.5 per 100 children. The injury rate increased sharply during the period from infant (2.4) to 1 year of age (7.5), and the peak injury rate (9.2) was reported for 5 year olds. The most common causes of injuries were falling (36.0%), followed by being struck by an object (23.7%), and traffic accidents (14.1%). Among the traffic accidents, 72.8% occurred while playing on the road, riding a bicycle or roller-skating. A proportional hazard model showed that males (hazard ratio=1.49, p<0.001 compared with female) and the mother's higher education level (hazard ratio of college or higher= 1.51, p=0.013; high school=1.32, p=0.085 compared with those of middle school or lower) were significant risk factors of childhood injury. Conclusion : The results of this study suggested that efforts for children's safety should be made, especially from the toddler stage, and in male children. To develop a more specific childhood injury prevention program, a surveillance system for injuries should be established. Further study of the relationship between mother's occupation and injury rates is also needed.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
• /
• v.17 no.4
• /
• pp.135-141
• /
• 2015

According to the statistics, occupational fatal injuries by mobile cranes were about 12 per year in whole industrial. Mobile cranes are widely used in various parts of industries to improve the efficiency of the work. However considerable number of fatal injuries happen each year during the operation of the machines. In this study, the current regulations to be adequate in industrial site have to be renew in order to prevent the fatal injuries by mobile cranes. Fatal injury analyses were conducted with several accident cases by the mobile cranes. For each accident, the causes of the injuries were examined and proper safety measures were proposed. In this study, the mobile crane showed a high fatality rate in industrial accidents and no detailed cause analysis of fatal accidents was conducted in terms of unsafe acts or conditions. This study proposed a revision of the standard guideline as an accident prevention measures through in-depth analysis of fatal accidents. First, among the mainly five machines caused the accidents, mobile crane was higher for the second showed 0.6% for number of fatalities compared to number of mobil cranes and for the third showed 11% for number of fatalities compared to number of injuries. Second, main cause of cognitive engineering agenda was visibility, responsibility, affordance. As the measures to prevent accidents before starting operation, alternative revision for the fool proof including visibility, responsibility, affordance etc. for the fool proof measures was proposed. Third, alternative revision as cognitive accident prevention for the fail safe measures was proposed.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
• /
• v.16 no.3
• /
• pp.273-277
• /
• 2014

Subcontracting business than the contracting business in shipbuilding industry is a lot of hazardous job and highly accident because of highly work intensity. In order to prevent the accidents, there is a need to analyze characteristic. of shipbuilding, to apply measures of risk assessment. In this paper, I suggested an improvement of the risk assessment through the actual condition research in shipbuilding industry. In the research method, I analysed accidents occurred until 2011-2013. Carried out the actual site survey while two weeks in May 2014. As a result, 1) The main pattern were caught-in or between, fall on the high level according to analyzed accidents. 2) To apply the weight show clear of magnitude for risk assessment. 3) Risk estimation of risk assessment is desirable to be quantization by accidents analysis, and to be greater than or equal to 4 steps.