• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2020.12a
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• pp.188-197
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• 2020

Due to hazardous working environments at complex, unstructured, and dynamic construction sites, workers frequently face potential safety and health risks throughout the construction process. In this regard, addressing safety challenges remains one of the top priorities. Construction workers' ability to identify and assess risks is acquired through training, which is one of the primary key factors to determine their safety and wellbeing in hazardous working environments. As such, safety managers constantly focus on the effectiveness of the training materials provided to the workers. However, the construction workers are considerably at greater risk of injuries and fatalities compared to the workers in other industries. In this regard, further studies are required to build up a body of knowledge on the conventional safety training approaches as well as their evaluation techniques in order to boost up the adoption by the practitioners in a widespread manner. This paper provides a systematic review of the current safety training approaches and the various techniques for measuring their effectiveness. The attributes of the current safety training methods for construction workers and their evaluation techniques are identified and analyzed. Results indicated that: 1) immersive environment-based training methods are effective than the traditional safety training methods; 2) this effectiveness can be empirically supported by evaluation strategies, but the current techniques are subjective, intrusive, and error-prone. This research offers fresh opportunities to investigate the training strategies by objectively monitoring the physiological responses of construction crews. The results of this study can be used by researchers and practitioners to identify and determine optimal safety training programs that could potentially become ubiquitous in the construction industry.

• The Journal of the Korea institute of electronic communication sciences
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.127-136
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• 2024

Because the hazardous working environments and high labor intensity of the root industry can potentially impact the health of workers, current regulations have focused on measuring and controlling environmental factors, on a semi-annual basis. However, there is a lack of quantitative criteria addressing workers' health conditions other than the physical work environment. This gap makes it challenging to prevent occupational diseases resulting from continuous exposure to harmful substances below regulatory thresholds. Therefore, this paper proposes a machine learning-based method for determining the peak level of risk in root industry work environments and enables real-time safety assessment in workplaces utilizing this approach.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.88-97
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• 2014

Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate the occurrence of microbiological contamination of kitchen utensils and environments of food service operations at university located in Seoul, Korea. Methods: We collected swab samples from the surfaces of knives, chopping boards, floors, and drains, as well as drinking water and airborne bacteria samples from 20 food service operations. Three bacterial indicators and five food poisoning bacteria were measured quantitatively and qualitatively, respectively. We used selective culture media and the PCR assay targeting 16S rRNA gene for the microbiological analysis. Results: We detected bacterial indicators on knives or chopping boards in eight different food service operations and, three food service operations (I, M, and O) showed more than 3 log colony forming units $(CFU)/100cm^2$ on their knives, significantly higher than the others. The levels of bacterial indicators on the floors and drains in the cooking areas were much higher than those on the cooking utensils. S. aureus was detected on 10 floors and 8 drains. Culturable bacteria were identified in 5 drinking water samples, and food service operation B ($431.1CFU/m^3$) and C ($551.2CFU/m^3$) showed more than $400CFU/m^3$ of total airborne bacteria. Conclusions: These results suggest that some of food service operations in this study may require additional investigation to secure the microbial safety of cooking environments. In addition, further actions including hygiene education for employees and proper guidelines to maintain clean cooking environments should be prepared.

• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.166-179
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• 2008

Purpose: This study was conducted to understand the situation of general hospital worker's health management and health promotion. Methods: To investigate the current situation of health management in the hospital, structured questionnaires were sent to 122 occupational health providers by post. About 79% hospitals returned questionnaires. The data were analyzed using descriptive analysis, ${\chi}^2$-test by SPSS 12.0 program. Results: A quarter hospitals responded set up separated health care office for workers, 87.5% provided health educations, and 56.5% operated health promotion projects. In the contents of health promotion program embraced both health behavior practice and disease prevention, musculoskeletal disease control, infection control, smoking cessation, and exercise program were most commonly provided to the workers in order. Occupational health care provider chose the item such as budget limitation, manager's apathy, lack of employee's participation, cooperation provider, and so on as the reason of difficulty to run health promotion program in the hospital setting. Conclusion: Hospital managers need to construct infra to manage and promote worker's health. For example, establishing Industrial safety and health committee in hospital and arranging nurses who being fully responsible to worker's health. And occupational health care provider should advertise health promotion projects both managers and workers actively.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.33-55
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• 2016

This paper examines the role of adverse working environments in the determination of workers' compensation in South Korean. I use the Third Korean Working Conditions Survey(2011), Occupational Safety and Health Research Institute that provide relevant variables in objective and subjective compensation and workers of diverse working environment. I find that risk factors in adverse working environments have a very minor role in the determination of individual wages. In contrast, adverse working environments have significant relationship with the level of compensation satisfaction. In addition, the results show that workers are more likely to receive compensation from psychological risk than physical risk. And women receive much more compensation in the psychological risk. These results provide useful information for improvement of working environments.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.305-311
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• 2015

Background: The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship nursing personal and workplace system factors (work disability) and work ability index scores in Ontario, Canada. Methods: A total of 111 registered nurses were randomly selected from the total number of registered nurses on staff in the labor, delivery, recovery, and postpartum areas of four northeastern Ontario hospitals. Using a stratified random design approach, 51 participants were randomly selected in four northeastern Ontario cities. Results: A total of 51 (45.9% response rate) online questionnaires were returned and another 60 (54.1% response rate) were completed using the paper format. The obstetric workforce in northeastern Ontario was predominately female (94.6%) with a mean age of 41.9 (standard deviation = 10.2). In the personal systems model, three variables: marital status (p = 0.025), respondent ethnicity (p = 0.026), and mean number of patients per shift (p = 0.049) were significantly contributed to the variance in work ability scores. In the workplace system model, job and career satisfaction (p = 0.026) had a positive influence on work ability scores, while work absenteeism (p = 0.023) demonstrated an inverse relationship with work ability scores. In the combined model, all the predictors were significantly related to work ability scores. Conclusion: Work ability is closely related to job and career satisfaction, and perceived control at work among obstetric nursing. In order to improve work ability, nurses need to work in environments that support them and allow them to be engaged in the decision-making processes.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.701-707
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• 2024

Industry 4.0 has brought about significant changes in the roles of workers through the introduction of innovative technologies. In smart factory environments, workers are required to interact seamlessly with robots and automated systems, often utilizing equipment enhanced by Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) technologies. This study aims to systematically analyze recent research literature on monitoring the physical and mental states of workers in Industry 4.0 environments. Relevant literature was collected using the Web of Science database, employing a comprehensive keyword search strategy involving terms related to Industry 4.0 and health monitoring. The initial search yielded 1,708 documents, which were refined to 923 journal articles. The analysis was conducted using VOSviewer, a tool for visualizing bibliometric data. The study identified general trends in the publication years, countries of authors, and research fields. Keywords were clustered into four main areas: 'Industry 4.0', 'Internet of Things', 'Machine Learning', and 'Monitoring'. The findings highlight that research on health monitoring of workers in Industry 4.0 is still emerging, with most studies focusing on using wearable devices to monitor mental and physical stress and risks. This study provides a foundational overview of the current state of research on health monitoring in Industry 4.0, emphasizing the need for continued exploration in this critical area to enhance worker well-being and productivity.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.386-392
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• 2017

Background: Fire service workers often implement multiple duties in the emergency conditions, with such duties being mostly conducted in various ambient temperatures. Methods: The aim of the current study was to assess the firefighters' physiological responses, information processing, and working memory prior to and following simulated firefighting activities in three different hot environments. Seventeen healthy male firefighters performed simulated firefighting tasks in three separate conditions, namely (1) low heat (LH; $29-31^{\circ}C$, 55-60% relative humidity), (2) moderate heat (MH; $32-34^{\circ}C$, 55-60% relative humidity), and (3) severe heat (SH; $35-37^{\circ}C$, 55-60% relative humidity). It took about 45-50 minutes for each firefighter to finish all defined firefighting activities and the paced auditory serial addition test (PASAT). Results: At the end of all the three experimental conditions, heart rate (HR) and tympanic temperature (TT) increased, while PASAT scores as a measure of information processing performance decreased relative to baseline. HR and TT were significantly higher at the end of the experiment in the SH ($159.41{\pm}4.25beats/min$; $38.22{\pm}0.10^{\circ}C$) compared with the MH ($156.59{\pm}3.77beats/min$; $38.20{\pm}0.10^{\circ}C$) and LH ($154.24{\pm}4.67beats/min$; $38.17{\pm}0.10^{\circ}C$) conditions (p < 0.05). There was no significant difference in PASAT scores between LH and MH (p > 0.05). Nonetheless, there was a measurable difference in PASAT scores between LH and SH (p < 0.05). Conclusion: These consequences demonstrate that ambient temperature is effective in raising the physiological responses following firefighting activities. It is therefore argued that further increase of ambient temperature can impact firefighters' information processing and working memory during firefighting activity.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.63-71
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• 2016

Background: Construction painters have not been studied well in terms of their hazards exposure. The objective of this study was to evaluate the exposure levels of total volatile organic compounds (TVOCs) for painters in the construction industry. Methods: Activity-specific personal air samplings were carried out in three waterproofing activities [polyurethane (PU), asphalt, and cement mortar] and three painting activities (epoxy, oil based, and water based) by using organic-vapor-monitor passive-sampling devices. Gas chromatograph with flame ionization detector could be used for identifying and quantifying individual organic chemicals. The levels of TVOCs, by summing up 15 targeted substances, were expressed in exposure-index (EI) values. Results: As arithmetic means in the order of concentration levels, the EIs of TVOCs in waterproofing works were 10.77, 2.42, 1.78, 1.68, 0.47, 0.07, and none detected (ND) for indoor PU-primer task, outdoor PU-primer task, outdoor PU-resin task, indoor PU-resin task, asphalt-primer task, asphalt-adhesive task, and cement-mortar task, respectively. The highest EI for painting works was 5.61 for indoor epoxyprimer task, followed by indoor epoxy-resin task (2.03), outdoor oil-based-spray-paint task (1.65), outdoor water-based-paint task (0.66), and indoor oil-based-paint task (0.15). Assuming that the operations were carried out continuously for 8 hours without breaks and by using the arithmetic means of EIs for each of the 12 tasks in this study, 58.3% (7 out of 12) exceeded the exposure limit of 100% (EI > 1.0), while 8.3% (1 out of 12) was in 50e100% of exposure limit (0.5 > EI > 1.0), and 4 tasks out of 12 were located in less than 50% of the limit range (EI < 0.5). Conclusion: From this study, we recognized that construction painters are exposed to various solvents, including carcinogens and reproductive toxins, and the levels of TVOC concentration in many of the painting tasks exceeded the exposure limits. Construction workers need to be protected from chemical agents during their painting works by using personal protective devices and/or work practice measures. Additional studies should focus on the exposure assessment of other hazards for construction workers, in order to identify high-risk tasks and to improve hazardous work environments.

• Journal of the Korean Society of School Health
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.115-126
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• 2004

Purpose: The aim of the study is to provide information about selecting school sites for new schools in congested urban areas and to propose a method to manage harmful environments around primary and secondary schools. Method: Four schools were selected around Gilum New Town and Ilsan City. The problems were identified by counting the businesses classified as harmful and prohibited in a school zone through surveying, collecting reports from relevant sources, and asking questions of authorities in school districts. Results: It was found that many harmful businesses prohibited by the Law of School Health were present in the safe zone of schools in both Ilsan city and Gilum New Town. The school site of Bohyun Elementary School was classified as poor because there was a steep ascent at the entrance and the school was surrounded by a dangerous, steep boundary. We suggested that an education and environment assessment system by completed before the school site was selected. Conclusion: There is a urgent need to improve the approval and permission process of harmful businesses as well as regulatory standards of school site selection in the light of the shortage of land.