• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
• /
• v.25 no.2
• /
• pp.39-48
• /
• 2023

Recently, the crisis of demographic extinction is rising in Korea more than any other country, and it is difficult for industrial sites to maintain without 'foreign workers'. Industrial accidents and accident deaths of foreign workers account for 7.6% and 12.3% of the total, through an in-depth analysis of fatal accidents in the manufacturing industry, differences and similarities between fatal accidents of foreign workers and all fatal accidents were confirmed in terms of occurrence type, workplace size, length of service, employment type, etc. In this study, customized countermeasures were found.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
• /
• v.30 no.3
• /
• pp.272-282
• /
• 2004

Stress is a primary health promotion issue in worksite research because psychological distress is closely related not only to workers　 health status but also to their job performance. This study identified the work environment and work condition factors affecting workers　 stress symptoms among the Korean manufacturing factory workers. A total of 7,818 factory workers employed in 1,562 manufacturing companies participated in the Korean nation-wide occupational health survey conducted by the Korean Occupational Safety and Health Agency in 2003. Participants were selected by the stratified proportional sampling process by standardized industry classification, company size, and locations. Trained interviewers visited the target companies and interviewed the factory workers randomly selected in each company. Work environments included physical work environments (temperature, noise, hazardous organic compounds, and so on) and psychological work environments (job demands, job control, and social support at work), and work conditions included daily working hour, rest time, and so on. Men were 71.5% and the mean age was 34.0 years old. The average working period in the present company was 6.9 years. The average stress score was 26.2 under the perfect score, 50, which means the moderate level of stress. Perceived stress had significant correlations with young age, poor physical work environment, high fatigue, bad perceived health status, and high job demands in Pearson's simple correlation analysis. Perceived health status and perceived fatigue explained 21% variance of stress symptoms and the work environment factor explained 4.8% of that; however, work condition did not have the sufficient effect. In particular, psychosocial work environment variables (job demand, job control, and social support at work) had a clear effect on stress symptoms rather than the physical work environments. Poor perceived health status, severe perceived fatigue, poor physical work environment, high job demands, low social support, heavy alcohol consumption and little exercise were significantly related to high stress symptoms in the Korean manufacturing workers.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
• /
• v.12 no.1
• /
• pp.239-246
• /
• 2001

This paper attempts to identify the occupational stress-related factors among the workers at the manufacturing industry and to provide the basic data concerning development of stress management program focused on the manufacturing industry. The subjects exhibit significantly highest level of 'the characteristics of task and participation in decision making factor'. And the mean score of 'the avoid coping strategies' was higher than 'the control coping strategies'. The main factor that affected the occupational stress responses was 'the physio-environmental factor' and it was explained 15.6% out of the total variance of the stress responses. Also, it would be explained 29% out of the total variance of the stress responses with 'the characteristics of task/participation in decision making factor', sex, social support, and 'extra-organizational stressor'. In conclusion. For developing the stress management program in workplace, 'the physical environmental factor' and 'the characteristics of task and participation in decision making factor' should be considered. Also, It should be identified the direct and indirect paths among factors that significantly related factors to the occupational stress of workers further more.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
• /
• v.13 no.4
• /
• pp.219-225
• /
• 2010

A structure of line for producing products is variously changing to be automatic and one-person Cell-Line considering the physical burden for workers in manufacturing industry of electronic goods. However, workers tend to still accuse Work-related Musculoskeletal Disorders (including shoulder, waist, hand, wrist, leg etc.) as a simply repeated work by accelerating of the production speed for productivity improvement in the assembly line. Thus manufacturing engineers in charge of changing and set up newly for an assembly line are necessary to the construct of the guideline on human engineering. Especially. There is no standardized engineering-guide and it is difficult to create the exact work environment because the risk factor analysis and the improvement for assembly line are executed once a year on the current situation. I'd like to reduce the physical burden on workers through the effective improvement of processing by the guideline on working environment fit for a characteristic on manufacturing process when the process is changed or newly installed.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
• /
• v.16 no.2
• /
• pp.131-144
• /
• 2006

For the purpose of preparing the fundamental data on working environment of small scale manufacturing industries and preventing the occupational diseases of workers in these industries, authors surveyed the status of working environment to several chemical substances and physical agents by types of industry and types of process in the small scale manufacturing industries with less than five workers in Gimhae including 235 workplaces, 14 types of industry and 25 types of process from January 2002 to December 2004. This measurement method was work environment measurement method (established in Ministry of Labor, Korea), analytical methods (2nd Ed.) of Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and manual of analytical methods (4th Ed.) of National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and collected data was analyzed by using SPSS 10.0 for windows, the results were as follows: 1. Noise generated in 14 types of industry and 22 types of process. an actual level of mean exposure (90.7 dB(A)) exceeded threshold limit values (TLVs) in manufacture of other transport equipment. An actual level of mean exposure (90.2dB) exceeded TLVs in the process of wire-drawing and 90.4dB in the process of wire-stranding. 2. Dusts of type I, II, III were generated in 9 types of industry and 8 types of process. Its mean concentration did not exceed TLVs. 3. Heavy metals (Pb, Mn, Cr, Ni) were generated in 7 types of industry and 7 types of process. Its mean concentration did not exceed TLVs. 4. 16 kinds of organic solvents were generated in 11 types of industry and 6 types of process. Its mean concentration did not exceed TLVs. As the above results, chemical substances and physical agents were generated in the several different types of industry and process of the manufacturing industry with less than five workers, and only mean level of noise was exceeded TLVs. In case of exceeding threshold limit values, improvement of work environment is actively needed, and work environment management should be performed continuously for prevention of an occupational diseases and work related diseases.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
• /
• v.16 no.3
• /
• pp.264-275
• /
• 2006

MSDs(Musculoskeletal Disorders) and Job Stress have been recognized as one of major problems in industry these days according to the results of most industrial health/safety studies. Specifically, MSDs have been growing problems in Korea as well as in US and European countries with higher incidence rate every year. This study tries to understand characteristics of job stress and association between MSDs and job stress for the workers at automobile manufacturing industry. This study also tries to understand the differences in terms of job stress between white collar and blue collar workers. The results showed that there was definite association between symptoms of MSDs and some of major job stress factors. However, there were big differences in terms of associations between two groups(white collar and blue collar workers). The first group(white collar workers) showed more associations between symptoms of MSDs and some of major job stress factors than that of the second group(blue collar workers) although symptom rate of the second group was higher than that of the first group. It could be concluded that symptoms of the first group had more effects from job stress while symptoms of the second group had more effects from typical job risk factors based on the results of the study.

• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
• /
• v.27 no.2
• /
• pp.131-138
• /
• 2018

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the differences in requirement and activity related to workers' health promotion according to business type and enterprise size. Methods: This study is a secondary analysis of data extracted from a survey on the Enterprise Health Promotion Index. For the present analysis, 7,784 companies were selected. Results: Requirements for lifestyle management and activities to prevent musculoskeletal disorders were the highest. The requirement and activity of musculoskeletal disorders and cerebrovascular disease were high in the manufacturing industry. Meanwhile, in the non-manufacturing industry, the requirement and activity of job stress management were high. Small-sized companies had a high requirement to prevent musculoskeletal disorders and cerebrovascular disease. Conclusion: Government support should be strengthened in workers' lifestyle management. Additionally, workers' health promotion in small-sized companies needs to focus on preventing musculoskeletal disorders and cerebrovascular disease.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
• /
• v.29 no.2
• /
• pp.226-235
• /
• 2019

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate whether there were differences in manufacturing industry worker's health issues depending on job stress, fatigue, and health and safety services. Methods: The purpose of the questionnaire survey and its contents were explained to manufacturing industry health personnel, and the questionnaires were collected from 666 workers from 17 manufacturing workplaces. Questionnaires with missing data were excluded from the analysis so a total of 632 questionnaires were included. Results: Overall, 74.1% of the respondents had experienced health issues during the preceding month. The factors affecting worker health were number of workers(OR=1.000034, p=.013), job demand(OR=1.82, p=.009), MFS(OR=1.85, p=.003), provision of safety & health information(OR=1.85, p=.048), wearing protector(OR=2.58, p=.021). Conclusion: It is necessary to strengthen the safety and health education to mitigate hazardous and risk factors. Employers should provide health managers in charge of safety and health education to control workplace risk factors. In case of small businesses, it may be necessary to strengthen safety and health education in existing worker health centers and government support projects.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
• /
• v.21 no.4
• /
• pp.227-235
• /
• 2011

The objective of this study was to analyze 157 processes of 145 industries that exceeded Korean Occupational Exposure Limits (KOEL) for carcinogen during the 11 year period from 1999 to 2009. The data included number of industry and workers exposed, type of carcinogen and their exceeded ratio, type and size of industry in each year. These data were collected by 46 regional employment & labor offices in Korea using work environment monitoring reports. The result showed that, in each year, about 10 industries exceed their carcinogen exposure limit. The most common carcinogen exceeding KOEL were found to be formaldehyde, benzene, ethylene oxide and chromium VI. The carcinogen with the highest level of over-exposure were in the order of formaldehyde, benzene, ethylene oxide and asbestos. Fabricated metal product manufacturing industry were found to be most vulnerable against carcinogen with 11.1% of them exceeding carcinogen KOEL followed by electronic components manufacturing industry (8.3%), chemical products manufacturing industry (6.3%), and electrical equipments manufacturing industry (4.9%). The industry employing less than 50 workers had the highest percentage of exceeding carcinogen KOEL with 52.8%. The result also showed that strengthening KOEL for benzene and asbestos helped reduce the level of carcinogen over-exposure. Based on these results, strengthening the KOEL or new regulation turned out to help reduce the carcinogen over-exposure level. Benzene, ethylene oxide and chromium VI were the most frequently over-exposed carcinogen with the highest level. Therefore, these chemicals need to be regulated with a highest priority to improve the workplace environment. The results also show that the small-sized industries employing less than 50 workers was the most vulnerable against carcinogen exposures. Therefore, more government support are needed for these small-sized industries to help them to improve their workplace environment.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
• /
• v.13 no.3
• /
• pp.1069-1076
• /
• 2012

This study is aimed to provide the basic data for improve plan of industrial safety and health education for industrial disaster prevention. The self-administered questionnaire were given to 167 manufacturing industry workers of 5 manufactural workplace in Kangwon province during the period from March 15th to April 15th, 2010. As a results, The rate of 76.6% in manufacturing industry workers have educational place for industrial safety and health education, but their industrial safety and health education was established in the workplace office, about 44.3%. Industrial safety and health education almost was done by means of lecture. Industrial safety and health education for manufacturing industry worker was done without thinking about general characteristics and kinds of work of manufacturing industry workers. The results of this study indicate that industrial safety and health education are needed to improve the problems. To improve the industrial safety and health education, it is necessary to be established industrial safety and health education thinking about general characteristics and kinds of work of workers.