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

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.74-95
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• 2021

Background: A job-exposure matrix (JEM) is an important surrogate indicator to evaluate past exposure levels. Although a Korean asbestos JEM has been constructed previously, this JEM includes only a few industrial and occupational groups. This study aimed to reconstruct the JEM by integrating the latest organized data to improve its utility. Methods: We used recent Korean standard industry and occupation codes and extracted 36 articles from a systematic literature review to initiate the reconstruction of the previous Korean asbestos JEM. The resulting data consisted of 141 combinations of industrial and occupational groups. Data from the Netherlands's JEM were also reviewed and categorized into 70 industrial and 117 occupational groups by matching with the Korean data. We also utilized Germany's data, which consisted of 10 industrial and 14 occupational groups. Results: The reconstructed Korean asbestos JEM had 141 combinations of industries and occupations. The time periods are from the 1980s to the 2000s in 10-year intervals. Most of the data were distributed between the 1990s and the 2000s. Occupations with high exposure to asbestos included knitting and weaving machine operators, automobile mechanics or assemblers, ship mechanics or assemblers, mineral ore and stone products processing mechanics, and metal casting machine operators or mold makers. Conclusions: The reconstructed Korean asbestos JEM has expanded the type and duration of the occupational groups of the previous JEM and can serve as an important reference tool for evaluating asbestos exposure and designing compensation and prevention policies in Korea.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Integrative Medicine
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.109-117
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• 2021

Purpose : This study examined the differences in occupational therapists' jobs depending on their past clinical careers using a survey of the importance of occupational therapy tasks in South Korea. This survey sought to provide fundamental data for strengthening occupational therapists' capacities and developing clinical training programs for therapists' future careers. Methods : An online survey was used to collect data from 93 South Korean occupational therapists. The subjects were divided into three groups for the analysis of the importance of occupational therapy tasks, depending on the length of their clinical careers: less than 3 years, from 4 to 6 years, and over 7 years. Results : A within-groups comparison of task importance found that "occupational therapy evaluation" was most important in all three groups. In between-groups comparisons, "patient information check", "assessment planning and establishment", "sensory function assessment", "social skills assessment", "developmental function improvement", "basic daily activities training", "social skills improvement", and "patient education" demonstrated statistically significant differences (p<.05). Each group showed different priorities. In the less-than-3-years group, "understanding of patient's needs" was most important, followed by "arm function improvement", "arm function assessment", "nerve, musculoskeletal, and motor-related functional improvement", and "basic daily activities training". In the 4-to-6-years group, "arm function assessment" was most important, followed by "basic daily activities assessment", "patient's needs", "arm function improvement", and "patient information check". In the over-7-years group, "understanding of patient's needs" was most important, followed by "patient information check", "basic daily activities assessment", "basic daily activities training", and "sensory function assessment". Conclusion : This study found that what occupational therapists consider important in their jobs varies according to their past clinical career and that occupational therapists with more than 7 years' experience are more aware of the importance of diverse fields of occupational therapy. Differentiated education that considers length of career and a range of training programs for more experienced occupational therapists will be needed in the future.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.1-29
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• 2005

This study examined the antecedents of psychological empowerment at hospital organizations, and also examined their differential effects among occupational groups within hospitals: doctors, nurses, engineers, and administrative workers. Various variables for multi-level factors were examined as antecedents: tenure, income, work centrality, and career goal as personal factors, job variety, job clarity, job significance, and job fitness as job factors, and security, reward justice, and organizational support as organizational factors. Data were collected from 8 national university hospitals, and 1,289 data were used for final analysis. For the whole groups, all antecedents except reward justice had significant effects on, and explained large amount of variance of empowerment. Results from the analysis for each occupational group showed that income, career goal, and job significance had significant effects on empowerment at all occupational groups, while reward justice had not at any groups. The effects of other variables depended on occupational groups. 1bis study found some important antecedents of empowerment which have been less considered in previous research: career goal, work centrality, security, and organizational support. The finding that differential effects of antecedents on empowerment by occupational groups suggests that group characteristics should be considered for studying empowerment. In this study, for example, personal factors rather than both job factors and organizational factors were more effective for empowerment in the engineering group whose job is relatively simple and clear, while job factors were most effective in other groups. The differential effects of antecedents on empowerment by occupational groups also have practical implications for improvement of empowerment at hospitals. For empowerment, personnel management efforts would be more required for administrative workers than other occupational groups, because they perceived least job clarity, job significance, job fitness among the groups, all of which were found to be important determinants of empowerment for them.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.25 no.2 s.38
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• pp.189-198
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• 1992

The purpose of this study was to compare the occupational health concerns and opinions among 4 groups : workers, employers and managers, government officials, and health & safety managers. It could help establishing occupational health plans efficiently and providing the way to solve health problems in workplaces in the Inchon area. The delphi technique which is used for deciding group opinion was adopted for this study. Questionnaires regarding health problems and their priorities in the workplaces were sent to four groups three times. All items were measured by five degree ordinal scales. The four groups agreed with questionnaire items, improvement of working environment, occupational health concerns of the employers, the health concerns of workers, and measurement and analysis of working environment, as the upper five priorities for solving the occupational health problems. Besides with the first five priorities, health examinations, health education, and occupational diseases were suggested as important health problems in workplace.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.213-217
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• 2016

Background: The objective of this study is to identify high-risk groups for industrial accidents by setting up 2003 as the base year and conducting an in-depth analysis of the trends of major industrial accident indexes the index of industrial accident rate, the index of occupational injury rate, the index of occupational illness and disease rate per 10,000 people, and the index of occupational injury fatality rate per 10,000 people for the past 10 years. Methods: This study selected industrial accident victims, who died or received more than 4 days of medical care benefits, due to occupational accidents and diseases occurring at workplaces, subject to the Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance Act, as the study population. Results: According to the trends of four major indexes by workplace characteristics, the whole industry has shown a decreasing tendency in all four major indexes since the base year (2003); as of 2012, the index of industrial accident rate was 67, while the index of occupational injury fatality rate per 10,000 people was 59. Conclusion: The manufacturing industry, age over 50 years and workplaces with more than 50 employees showed a high severity level of occupational accidents. Male workers showed a higher severity level of occupational accidents than female workers. The employment period of < 3 years and newly hired workers with a relatively shorter working period are likely to have more occupational accidents than others. Overall, an industrial accident prevention policy must be established by concentrating all available resources and capacities of these high-risk groups.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.67-77
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• 1991

An investigation of the effect of occupational information on vocational cognitive complexity was conducted with 331 male and female adolescents in ninth grade. There were 2 experimental groups and 1 control group. Experimental group I was given only occupational information sheets (written form information) while group II was given occupational information through verbal instruction in addition to the occupational information sheets. A modified form of the cognitive complexity grid originally developed by Bodden (1970) was utilized to collect data on the subjects' vocational cognitive complexity. ANOVA and $Scheff{\acute{e}}$ tests revealed that there were significant differences between experimental group II and the other groups in vocational cognitive complexity. The cognitive complexity level of experimental group I and the control group for the most aspired occupation was significantly lower than for the least aspired occupation. However, the cognitive complexity level of experimental group II for the most aspired occupation was higher than for the least aspired occupation. The results suggest that just giving occupational information to adolescents may not be effective and giving occupational information may be effective only when the method of giving occupational information is active enough to induce adolescents' self-confirming cognitive process.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.130-135
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• 2003

This study is planned to investigate the compliance of small sized enterprises of under 5 employees directed by Industrial Safety and Health Act. Occupational safety regulation can be required for employer and employee to comply because that all members of workplace should be involved to protect worker's health. When all members of workplace comply with safety regulation, effectiveness of regulation will be realized as expectation. The study subject is composed of three groups as 501 employers, 501 employees of small sized enterprises of under 5 employees and 107 safety inspectors sampled by stratified random sampling for comparison. Data for analysis is collected from each sample using interview with structured questionnaires. Compliance is measured by 5 point scale composed by 8 sub items such as general perception, understanding, clearness, necessity, relevancy, implementation, penalty, and general compliance of the regulation. Among sub items of employer's compliance, the level of perception of regulation, necessity of regulation, relevancy of penalty are differentiated among three groups. The level of all 8 items of employee's compliance also differentiated among three groups. These results show that strategies for ensuring the same level of compliance among three groups will be needed through education, training and evaluation of regulation and feedback.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.233-244
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• 2006

Of many volatile organic detergents for metals, benzine(CAS No. 8030-30-6), of which the toxicity has not yet been proven, has been used as an alternative of the halide compounds in the consideration of toxic effects, global warming and the destruction of ozone layer. In order to evaluate the effects of the benzine on human body by investigating the subchronic inhalation toxicity, to obtain the basic data for establishing the criteria of exposure in working environments and to classify the hazardousness in compliance with the Industrial Safety and Health Act by evaluating the hazardousness, repeated inhalation exposure test was carried with SD rats. The rats were grouped by 10 females and males each. The repetitive inhalation exposures were carried out at 4 levels of concentration of 0 ppm, 60 ppm, 300 ppm, and 1,500 ppm, for 6 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 13 weeks. The results are described hereunder. 1. No death of the animals of the exposed and controlled groups in the test period. Not any specific clinical symptoms, change in feed intake quantity, abnormality in eye test, or change in activity were observed. 2. In the 300 ppm and 1,500 ppm groups, weight reduction in the female groups and weight increase of liver and kidney in the male groups compared with control group were observed with statistical significance(p<0.05). 3. In the blood test, the HCT increased in the male 300 ppm group and the number of hematocyte increased, MCV and MCH decreased in the male 1,500 ppm group. In the female 1,500 ppm group, the HB decreased and the distribution width of the hematocyte particle size increased. In the blood biochemistry test, the TP in the male 1,500 ppm group and the LDH in the female 1,500 ppm group were increased with statistical significance(p<0.05). 4. Under the test conditions of the present study with SD rats, the NOEL was evaluated to be from 60 ppm to 300 ppm for both male and female groups. By extrapolation, the NOEL for human who work 8 hours a day was evaluated to be from 128 ppm to 640 ppm 5. Since the NOEL evaluated in this study do not exceed 60ppm(0.184 mg/L) the test material does not belong to the classification of the hazardous substance "NOEL${\leq}$0.5mg/L/6hr/90day(rat), for continuous inhalation of 6hours a day for 90 days" nor to the basic hazardous chemical substance class 1(0.2 mg/L/6hr/90day(rat) defined by the GHS which is a criteria of classification and identification of chemical compounds. However, considering the boiling point($30-204^{\circ}C$), flashing point($-40^{\circ}C$), vapor pressure(40 mmHg), and the inflammable range(1.0 - 6.0 %), sufficient care should be taken for handling in the safety aspects including fire or explosion.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.3-20
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• 2019

This review aimed to identify risk factors for occupational accidents and illnesses among young workers in the Nordic countries and to attain knowledge on specific vulnerable groups within the young working force that may need special attention. We conducted a systematic review from 1994 to 2014 using five online databases. Of the 12,528 retrieved articles, 54 met the review criteria and were quality assessed, in which data were extracted focusing on identifying occupational safety, health risk factors, and vulnerable groups among the young workers. The review shows that mechanical factors such as heavy lifting, psychosocial factors such as low control over work pace, and organizational factors such as safety climate are all associated with increased injury risk for young Nordic workers. Results show that exposures to chemical substances were associated with skin reactions, e.g., hand eczema. Heavy lifting and awkward postures were risk factors for low back pain, and high job demands were risk factors for mental health outcomes. The review identified young unskilled workers including school drop-out workers as particularly vulnerable groups when it comes to occupational accidents. In addition, apprentices and young skilled workers were found to be vulnerable to work-related illnesses. It is essential to avoid stereotyping young Nordic workers into one group using only age as a factor, as young workers are a heterogeneous group and their vulnerabilities to occupational safety and health risks are contextual. Politicians, researchers, and practitioners should account for this complexity in the education, training and organization of work, and workplace health and safety culture.