• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.224-234
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• 2012

Objectives: This study was conducted in order to obtain information concerning the health hazards that may result from a 13 week inhalation exposure of n-pentane in Sprague-Dawley rats. Methods: This study was conducted in accordance with the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) guidelines for the testing of chemicals No. 413 'Subchronic inhalation toxicity: 90-day study (as revised in 2009)'. The rats were divided into 4 groups (10 male and 10 female rats in each group), and were exposed to 0, 340, 1,530, and 6,885 ppm n-pentane in each exposure chamber for 6 hour/day, 5 days/week, for 13 weeks. All of the rats were sacrificed at the end of the treatment period. During the test period, clinical signs, mortality, body weights, food consumption, ophthalmoscopy, locomotion activity, urinalysis, hematology, serum biochemistry, gross findings, organ weights, and histopathology were assessed. Results: During the period of testing, there were no treatment related effects on the clinical findings, body weight, food consumption, ophthalmoscopy, urinalysis, hematology, serum biochemistry, gross findings, relative organ weight, and histopathological findings. Conclusion: The no-observable-adverse-effect level (NOAEL) of n-pentane is evaluated as being more than 6,885 ppm (20.3 mg/L) in both male and female rats. n-pentane was not a classified specific target organ toxicity in the globally harmonized classification system (GHS).

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.425-435
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• 2014

Objectives: This study was performed in order to establish reliable and relative selection criteria for hazardous substances requiring management(HSRM) in the Occupational Safety and Health Act in Korea. Methods: To determine the relative criteria and weight of evidence for HSRM, we analyzed the difference between the selection method of priority substances in studies by KOSHA(Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency) and the European Union Risk Ranking Method(EURAM). In addition, 597 hazardous substances with exposure limit valueswereanalyzed and the posted health hazards classification by MOEL(Ministry of Employee and Labor), MOE(Ministry of Environment), and EU CLP(Classification, Labelling and Packaging regulation) were compared based on GHS(Globally Harmonized System of classification and labelling of chemicals) criteria. The existing HSRM(167 substances) were evaluated for suitability by the proposed criteria in this study. Results: As a result of this study, the criteria and procedures for selecting HSRM in the Occupational Safety and Health Act were arranged utilizing GHS health hazard classification results, occupational disease cases and domestic use situations. Conclusions: The applicability of the proposed criteria was proved via the evaluation of existing HSRM(167 substances). Most HSRM (161 substances) were found to correspond to a significant health effect or substantial health effect. The question of whether to include the six substances that have been found to have general health effects as HSRM would be require further research.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.55-76
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• 1999

In order to understand the local council members' attitudes to the health policy, we conducted mail surveys using self-administered questionaire for 2 months(February and March. 1995). The study subjects were 2.312 local council members in Korea, but only about 11% among whom. 257 persons, responded to 2 times mail survey. This response rate revealed that the local council members was not interested in health care fields. The main results were as follows; The respondents thought that the economic and income development was most important among 15 regional policy agendas and the health care was the 5th or 7th important agenda. They. who had more health needs of and poor access to health care, tended to think that the health care was more important. They considered lobbying to and persuading the civil servants as the best method to tackle the local health care policy agenda. The respondents, who had poor access to health care facilities. tended to set the highest priority for the expansion of public and private health care resources. They expected that the election of local governor would activate the public health program more than thought that the program was implemented more actively than other region. The main opinion of respondents was that the central government had to take over planning and financing for the public health program, and the basic local government had to implment the program and budgeting. The majority of respondents agreed the private dominant medical care delivery system and nation-wide uniformed financing mechanism. Over 60% of them suggested that they were ready to suffer environmental pollution inducing health hazards for the purpose of regional economic and income development. About 75% of them favour the campaign for antismoking regardless of reducing local government's revenue from sale tax.

• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.139-149
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• 2001

With the increasing number of women involved in social activities, beauty industry has flourished. More women than ever before are concerned about make-up, hair care, skin care, and weight control, etc. With the success and commercialization of beauty industry, unconfirmed beauty care services have been introduced in the market. However, the health hazard from diverse beauty care services has not been systematically addressed. This study has the following two purposes: 1) to examine the utilization pattern of diverse beauty care services; and 2) to examine the health hazard from beauty care services. For this study, two major universities located in Seoul area were selected. While 450 female college students were selected from one women's university, the other 450 were from mixed university. Using survey questionnaire, we interviewed with 900 female college students. The results are as follows: As for the beauty care patterns, makeup accounted for 78.6％, Skin care 49.5％, weight/body control 32.0％, hair care 81.5％, and cosmetic operation 14.9％, indicating significant high rates of makeup(x2=9.215, p=0.002) and hair care(x2=4.435, p=0.035) at both mixed and women's universities. The health hazard was measured using four questions. The past studies have not paid special attention to the methodological issue of how to ask health hazard. Depending on how to ask health hazard, the percentage of respondents reporting health problems varied. When the respondents were asked whether or not they had suffered health problems for a short period, over 60％ of respondents reported health problems; when they were asked in other ways-1) whether or not they had suffered health problems for a long period, 2) whether or not they had suffered whole body problems, 3) whether or not they had permanent traces on skin due to beauty care activities-, the percentage of respondents reporting health problems dropped substantially to less than 10％, This finding indicates the importance of ‘words’ used in questions. The relationships between health problems and utilization of beauty care services were examined, using χ2 test or t test. We found that there was a significant relationship between health problem and beauty care.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.73-81
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to obtain scientific information regarding classification and health hazards that may result from a 13 weeks inhalation exposure of isoprene in Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats. The testing method was conducted in accordance with OECD guidelines for the testing of chemicals No. 413. The Rats were divided into 4 groups (10 male and 10 female rats in each group) and exposed to 0, 360, 1,620, 7,300 ppm isoprene in each exposure chamber for 6 h/day, 5 days/week, for 13 weeks. As a result, there were no mortality or abnormality during the period of study and did not show any significant changes of body weight. There were no dose response changes in urinalysis, hematological and serum biochemical value examination. Relative organ weight was increased significantly the right kidney in 7,300 ppm group of male rats. In female rats, relative organ weight of the left kidney and the both lungs in 1,620 ppm group and the left lung and the both kidneys in 7,300 ppm group were increased significantly. But the histopathological findings did not reveal any exposure-related changes. According to the above results, the no observable adverse effect level (NOAEL) of isoprene was 7,300 ppm (20.3 mg/L) in both male and female rats. In conclusion, Isoprene was not classified specific target organ toxicity of the 'Standard for Classification and Labeling of Chemical Substance and Material Safety Data Sheet' (Ministry of Employment and Labor, 2009).

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.289-294
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• 2015

Background: The type of payment is one of the important factors that has an effect on the health of employees, as a basic working condition. In the conventional research field of occupational safety and health, only the physical, chemical, biological, and ergonomic factors are treated as the main hazardous factors. Managerial factors and basic working conditions such as working hours and the type of payment are neglected. This paper aimed to investigate the association of the type of payment and the exposure to the various hazardous factors as an heuristic study. Methods: The third Korean Working Conditions Survey (KWCS) by the Occupational Safety and Health Research Institute in 2011 was used for this study. Among the total sample of 50,032 economically active persons, 34,788 employees were considered for analysis. This study examined the relation between the three types of payment such as basic fixed salary and wage, piece rate, and extra payment for bad and dangerous working conditions and exposure to hazardous factors like vibration, noise, temperature, chemical contact, and working at very high speeds. Multivariate regression analysis was used to measure the effect of the type of payment on working hours exposed to hazards. Results: The result showed that the proportion of employees with a basic fixed salary was 94.5%, the proportion with piece rates was 38.6%, and the proportion who received extra payment for hazardous working conditions was 11.7%. Conclusion: The piece rate was associated with exposure to working with tight deadlines and stressful jobs. This study had some limitations because KWCS was a cross-sectional survey.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.114-121
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• 2019

Background: The photolithography process in the semiconductor industry uses various chemicals with little information on their constitution. This study aimed to identify the chemical constituents of photoresist (PR) products and their by-products and to compare these constituents with material safety data sheets (MSDSs) and analytical results. Methods: A total of 51 PRs with 48 MSDSs were collected. Analysis consisted of two parts: First, the constituents of the chemical products were identified and analyzed using MSDS data; second, for verification of the by-products of PR, volatile organic compounds were analyzed. The chemical constituents were categorized according to hazards. Results: Forty-five of 48 products contained trade secrets in amounts ranging from 1 to 65%. A total of 238 ingredients with multiple counting (35 ingredients without multiple counting) were identified in the MSDS data, and 48.7% of ingredients were labeled as trade secrets under the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Act. The concordance rate between the MSDS data and the analytical result was 41.7%. The by-product analysis identified 129 chemicals classified according to Chemical Abstracts Service No., with 17 chemicals that are carcinogenic, mutagenic, and reprotoxic substances. Formaldehyde was found to be released from 12 of 21 products that use novolak resin. Conclusion: We confirmed that several PRs contain carcinogens, and some were not specified in the toxicological information in the MSDS. Hazardous chemicals, including benzene and formaldehyde, are released from PRs products as by-products. Therefore, it is necessary to establish a systematic management system for chemical compounds and the working environment.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.123-129
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• 2022

Background: The Environmental Health Action Program was a national project carried out from 2012~2021. It was aimed at developing public technologies to protect people's health from various environmental hazards. Objectives: One of the final goals of the project was "creating health benefits worth more than 179.2 billion won by reducing the environmental burden of disease." This study aims to evaluate whether the program sufficiently achieved the planned benefits. Methods: In order to secure consistency in evaluation, we applied the same equation used in the goal-setting process. It is comprised of six parameters to estimate the benefit: 1. The amount of medical expenses for environmental diseases; 2. The attributable proportion of environmental risk factors' 3. The rate of reduction in medical expenses for environmental diseases; 4. R&D project contribution; 5. The proportion of successful policy reflection; and 6. The contributions of the project. The corresponding variables were estimated at the end of the project, and the health benefits of the project were recalculated using the newly estimated variables. Results: It was estimated that a total of 195 billion won in health benefits occurred or will occur from 2015 to 2026. The main contributors for achieving the target were an increase in medical expenses for environmental diseases, a high score in the R&D project contribution, and the proportion of successful policy reflection. Conclusions: Technically, the equation used in the project is about medical expenses for environmental diseases rather than about the environmental burden of disease. There are several benefits of using the environmental burden of disease in the evaluation of public health policies. In further studies, developing a policy evaluation framework using indicators such as population attributable fraction would be needed.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.49-54
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• 2012

There is a possibility that electrical sparks may occur at discontinuities in metallic structures from distance of close to high power radio/radar transmitters. Voltage may be induced on these metallic structures by the radio-frequency transmitter. In this case, a person who comes into contact with these structure may be undergone a severe electrical shock. In this paper, assessment of the electrical shock and ignition hazards was investigated through experimental which are consisted radio transmitter and metallic loop-type structure in shield room. We measured that the induced voltage was highest at 61 MHz of transmission frequency, and confirmed the possibility of electric shock and explosion induced by a voltage or spark. But it is needed additional research where is opened site.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.58 no.3
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• pp.493-497
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• 2020

Hazardous area classification is designed to prevent chemical plant explosions in advance. Generally, the duration of the explosive atmosphere is used for zone type classification. Herein, IEC code, a quantitative zone type classification methodology, was used to achieve Zone 2 NE, which indicates a practical non-explosion condition. This study analyzed the operating pressure of a vessel handling propane to achieve Zone 2 NE by applying the IEC code via MATLAB. The resulting zone type and hazardous area grades were compared with the results from other design standards, namely API and EI codes. According to the IEC code, the operating pressure of vessels handling propane should be between 101325-116560.59 Pa. In contrast, the zone type classification criteria used by API and EI codes are abstract. Therefore, since these codes could interpret excessively explosive atmospheres, care is required while using them for hazardous area classification design.