• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.40 no.6
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• pp.435-441
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• 2014

Objectives: Bisphenol A, or BPA, is a chemical component in polycarbonate plastic with which many people come into contact every day. A great deal of controversy has arisen over its safety since this material, which is known to disrupt the human endocrine system and cause neurological difficulties and cancer, is commonplace in beverage containers, food can liners, and receipt paper rolls. In this study, we determined the levels of exposure to BPA of workers in the service industry depending on the number of receipts contacted. Methods: The participants were 16 male and 18 female workers employed in the service industry. Using a questionnaire, we investigated general and job characteristics. Urine samples were collected and analyzed by the LC-MS/MS technique after enzymatic hydrolysis and solid phase extraction (SPE). Results: The geometric mean (GM) concentration of urinary BPA from all subjects was 1.02 ng/ml. Workers were exposed significantly to more BPA according to the number of receipts they contacted, their work experience, and working hours per day. The BPA concentration of those who touched more than 100 receipts per day was 3.09 ng/ml, while that of the other participants was 0.61 ng/ml. It was shown that wearing gloves can protect from BPA exposure. Conclusion: We determined the urinary BPA concentrations of workers in service industry and found that the contact with receipts could increase the BPA exposure of service workers.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Building Construction
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.227-235
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• 2015

For last decade, the number of foreign workers in all industries has been increased continuously. In the construction industry, the number of foreign workers has also increased as 80,000 persons in 2010. According to the increase of foreign workers at domestic construction sites, the frequency of construction disasters has increased as well. The safety education can be a effective solution to decrease the construction disaster. So, it is necessary to develop the appropriate education system for foreign workers. Therefore, the objective of this study is to propose a safety education model for foreign workers and to develop the prototype system. In a result of that, a new safety education model and prototype system was constructed based on the method of E-learning. The system can support for foreign workers in domestic construction sites to understand the safety education easily. And, it can also assist the safety manager to educate and manage the foreign workers efficiently.

• Journal of Korean Public Health Nursing
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.522-535
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• 2014

Purpose: This study was constructed in order to examine factors that influence work-related musculoskeletal disease (WMSD) approvals and current status according to the company size. Method: This is a descriptive study that utilized Industrial Accident Compensation Claim Data. Workplaces with over 35,811 workers derived from the 2012 claim data, which comprised approximately 91.5%, were selected for this study. Then workplaces were divided into three groups according to the number of workers: less than 5, 5~299, and 300 and over. Results: Since 2008, the number of small sized workplaces has increased. The 2012 data showed that 32.5% of workers at small sized workplace had WMSD. However, workplaces with 5~299 workers showed WMSD approval rate of 60%. Of note most WMSD approved workers were employed by manufacturing and construction companies, regardless of the workplace size. Most of them were engaged in elementary tasks. The days of medical treatment at OPD and IPD were most prevalent among workers at the largest workplaces. Conclusions: It is certain from this study that WMSD has been polarized by the company size. More policy attention should be paid to the WMSD status of workers at small sized workplaces which usually do not have their own health office.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.502-516
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• 2023

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate occupational exposure to chemical and health status of foreign workers in Korea. Methods: The data were collected from survey of general characteristics, job-related characteristics, work environment-related characteristics of 180 foreign workers who have been working at manufacturing industries in Korea in 2022. The data were analyzed using Rex. Results: Among the 180 participants, men accounted for more than women by 71.7% (129 people). Most of them are Vietnamese or Filipino and most of them graduated from high school. 116 of all participants are exposed to chemicals at work. The most prevalence rate of subject's health problems were backache (61.0%), headache (53.9%), fatigue (68.0%). Controlling for age, the number of physical health problems experienced in the last year was associated with BMI (r=0.184, p=0.049), and the number of mental health problems experienced in the past year (r=0.056, p<0.001) and all showed significant positive (+) correlations. The number of chemical products handled under age control showed a significant negative (-) correlation with working hours (r=0.207, p=0.027) and BMI (r=0.214, p=0.022) and showed a significant positive (+) correlation. Conclusions: The results of this study provided the latest update on the health status of foreign workers in Korea. It is also the first survey to attempt to assess the exposure of foreign workers to chemicals.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.443-448
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• 2005

Objectives : This study was done to evaluate the reliability of education and occupational class between using the health survey and the death certificate data. Methods : The 1998 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) was conducted on a cross-sectional probability sample of South Korean households, and it contained unique 13-digit personal identification numbers that were linked to the data on mortality from the Korean National Statistical Office. The data from 263 deaths were used to estimate the agreement rates and the Kappa indices of the education and occupational class between using the NHANES data and the death certificate data. Results : The simple and weighted Kappa indices for education were 0.60 (95% CI=0.53-0.68) and 0.73 (95% CI=0.67-0.79) respectively, if the educational level was grouped into five categories: no-formal-education, elementary-school, middle-school, high-school and college or over. The overall agreement rate was 71.9% for these educational groups. The magnitude of reliability, as measured by the overall agreement rates and Kappa indices, tended to increase with a decrease in the educational class. The number of non-educated people with using the death certificate data was smaller than that with using the NHANES data. For the occupational class (manual workers, non-manual workers and others), the Kappa index was 0.40 (95% CI=0.30-0.51), which was relatively lower than that for the educational class. Compared with the NHANES, the number of non-manual workers for the deceased who were aged 30-64 tended to be increased (8 to 12) when using the death certificate data, whereas the number of manual workers tended to be decreased (59 to 41). Conclusions : The socioeconomic inequalities in the mortality rates that were based on the previous unlinked studies in South Korea were not due to a numerator/denominator bias. The mortality rates for the manual workers and the no-education groups might have been underestimated.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.146-152
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• 1997

The number of accidents due to slipping, falling and awkward postures are estimated to account for over forty percent of annual industrial accidents in Korea. To prevent such accidents, stability-maintaining capabilities of workers should be understood before any other approach. This research was aimed to analyze capabilities of the workers with the help of yours male students maintaining standing postures on a tiltable stability platform. The experimental result showed that tilting direction, height of pivoting point, and permissible degree of swaying made significant effects on stability-maintaining duration. Besides, humans are more capable of maintaining their standing body postures on a platform tiltable fore and aft rather than or one tiltable sideways. The number of falling or tripping supported this phenomenon. A mechanical and physical discussion on the stability was added.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.54 no.6
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• pp.121-131
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• 2012

Many of the falling which is the number one risk factor in lethal accidents in construction could have been prevented if the right activity or supervising had been taken in time. All other measures do not preventive the fall, but rather intercept the fallen itself or preventive severe injury. The most common and the bets measures on the preventive measures are guardrails which are to be worn on the site. Workers always exposed the risk of serious accidents induced by causal effects related with environments around construction sites. In order to represent how to decrease the risk of workers, this study was accomplished with a number of interview with experienced site director, cheief of instructors, workers. And the questionaire survey (2012. 5~2012. 10) were used to make proposed policies which are expected to reduce critical disastrous accidents and strength authorized limits of director's management automatically.

• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.186-195
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• 2021

Purpose: The current status and rationale of industrial accidents needs to be examined to develop scientific and systemic preventive measures. Methods: The aim of this study is to analyze the current data on industrial accidents provided by the Ministry of Employment and Labor and categorize work-related deaths by types of industries and annual report. Results: First, the highest number of deaths occurred in industries that had less than 50 people. Second, in the manufacturing industry, the highest death rate was found in workers in the age group 50-59 years. In the construction industry, workers aged 50 and above had the highest number of deaths. In other industries, workers aged 60 and above had the highest number of deaths. Third, the highest number of deaths occurred in workers with less than one year of experience in any industry Fourth, in most industries, the highest work-related deaths occurred during weekdays (Monday~Friday). In 2015, the warehouse delivery industry had 33% higher work-related deaths on the weekends (Saturday and Sunday) as compared to other industries. Fifth, in most industries, the highest work-related deaths occurred from 8 AM to 6 PM. The warehouse delivery industry had higher work-related deaths from 10 PM to 8 AM as compared to other industries. Conclusion: In order to increase the efficacy of industrial accident prevention, it is necessary to establish an effective health management system and apply strict safety management activities.

• Journal of the East Asian Society of Dietary Life
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.311-319
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• 2000

This study was to investigate eating behaviors and food preferences of the worker at transportation business in Daegu areas by work site. The survey was performed by questionnaires from July 13 to August 25, 1999 against 353 of males. As a general factor, the subjects of survey were male drivers in their forties to fifties. Their education level was middle school (46.5%) and high school (47.3%) diploma. The subjects were composed of 44.2% of city workers and 55.5% of suburban workers. This study showed that the city workers eat three meals per day with high percentage (92.9%) and a large number of suburban workers (21.3%) eat two meals only. Most of the subjects 782.% responded that their diet life were irregular due to the property of their job. The food preferences of most of workers (94.9%) were Korean food rather than any other foods. Frequency of eating-out was much higher in city drivers than in suburban drivers. They considered taste of food firstly and the prices of food secondly, but the nutritional value of food was considered with a very low percentage (14.7%). Their favorite menu turned out to be the Korean style one-dish food, of those one-dish Koran food, they preferred rice or soup to the noodles. These results suggest that he nutritional education against the workers at transportation business is needed to set the proper menu considering the characteristics of the preference each group of workers.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.194-199
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• 2001

The present situation of Korea already shone various symptoms of the aged society, and many kinds of data reported by the National Statistical Office demonstrate those facts. However, to my regret, sufficient efforts for aged workers are not taken in the area of industrial safety. In this research, work arrangement and industrial accidents of middle-aged and aged workers over last 5 years were analyzed. According to research results, proportion of industrial accidents involved middle-aged and aged workers was as high as 40%, and that of aged workers alone was so high as 25%. In addition, proportion of accidents were higher than that of worker population f3r aged wetters. Considering ages, it was demonstrated that as workers get older, mean number of accidents shows the tendency of going higher, and that as years go by, mean lost work-days are increasing regardless of age group. Main accident types were Fall followed by Slip, and Work-Related Disease, furthermore proportion of Slip was highest than any other types for aged workers. Based upon these results, it was emphasized thai careful attention should be paid to functional characteristics of aged workers, and that modification of accident prevention policy would be necessary.