• Safety and Health at Work
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• 제7권3호
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• pp.225-230
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• 2016

Background: This study seeks to examine the relationship and impact of occupational health and safety on employees' organizational commitment in Ghana's mining industry. The study explores occupational health and safety and the different dimensions of organizational commitment. Methods: A cross-sectional survey design was used for this study. The respondents were selected based on simple random sampling. Out of 400 questionnaires administered, 370 were returned (77.3% male and 22.7% female) and used for the study. Correlation and multiple regression analysis were used to determine the relationship and impact between the variables. Results: The findings of this study revealed positive and significant relationship between occupational health and safety management, and affective, normative, and continuance commitment. Additionally, the results revealed the significant impact of occupational health and safety on affective, normative, and continuance commitment. Conclusion: Management within the mining sector of Ghana must recognize the fact that workers who feel healthy and safe in the performance of their duties, develop emotional attachment and have a sense of obligation to their organization and are most likely committed to the organization. Employees do not just become committed to the organization; rather, they expect management to first think about their health and safety needs by instituting good and sound policy measures. Thus, management should invest in the protection of employees' health and safety in organizations.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• 제12권2호
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• pp.201-208
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• 2021

Background: In the mining industry, various methods of accident analysis have utilized official accident investigations to try and establish broader causation mechanisms. An emerging area of interest is identifying the extent to which cultural influences, such as safety culture, are acting as drivers in the reoccurrence of accidents. Thus, the overall objective of this study was to analyze occupational health and safety (OHS) reports in mining to investigate if/how safety culture has historically been framed in the mining industry, as it relates to accident causation. Methods: Using a computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software, 34 definitions of safety culture were analyzed to highlight key terms. Based on word count and contextual relevance, 26 key terms were captured. Ten OHS reports were then analyzed via an inductive thematic analysis, using the key terms. This analysis provided a concept map representing the 50-year data set and facilitated the use of text framing to highlight safety culture in the selected OHS mining reports. Results: Overall, 954 references and six themes, safety culture, attitude, competence, belief, patterns, and norms, were identified in the data set. Of the 26 key terms originally identified, 24 of them were captured within the text. The results made evident two distinct frames in which to interpret the data: the role of the individual and the role of the organization, in safety culture. Conclusion: Unless efforts are made to understand and alter cultural drivers and share these findings within and across industries, the same accidents are likely to continue to occur.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• 제10권4호
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• pp.409-419
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• 2019

Although the rare earth elements (REEs) recycling industry is expected to increase worldwide in hightech industry, regulations for worker safety have yet to be established. This study was conducted to understand the potential hazard/risk of REE recycling and to support the establishment of regulations or standards. We review the extensive literature on the toxicology, occupational safety, and health issues, and epidemiological surveys related to the REEs, and propose suitable management measures. REE recycling has four key steps such as collection, dismantling, separation, and processing. In these processes, hazardous substances, such as REEs-containing dust, metals, and chemicals, were used or occurred, including the risk of ignition and explosion, and the workers can be easily exposed to them. In addition, skin irritation and toxicities for respiratory, nervous, and cardiovascular systems with the liver toxicity were reported; however, more supplementary data are needed, owing to incompleteness. Therefore, monitoring systems concerning health, environmental impacts, and safety need to be established, based on additional research studies. It is also necessary to develop innovative and environment-friendly recycling technologies, analytical methods, and biomarkers with government support. Through these efforts, the occupational safety and health status will be improved, along with the establishment of advanced REE recycling industry.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• 제10권3호
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• pp.265-274
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• 2019

Background: Methyl alcohol poisoning in mobile phone-manufacturing factories during 2015-2016 was caused by methyl alcohol use for cleaning in computerized numerical control (CNC) processes. To determine whether there were health complications in other workers involved in similar processes, the Occupational Safety and Health Research Institute conducted a survey. Methods: We established a national active surveillance system by collaborating with the Ministry of Employment and Labor and National Health Insurance Service. Employment and national health insurance data were used. Overall, 12,048 employees of major domestic mobile phone companies and CNC process dispatch workers were surveyed from 2016 to 2017. We investigated methyl alcohol poisoning by using the national health insurance data. Questionnaires were used to investigate diseases due to methyl alcohol poisoning. Results: Overall, 24.9% of dispatched workers were employed in at least five companies, and 23.9% of dispatched workers had missing employment insurance history data. The prevalence of blindness including visual impairment, optic neuritis, visual disturbances, and alcohol toxicity in the study participants was higher than that reported in the national health insurance database (0.02%, 0.07%, 0.23%, and 0.03% versus 0.01%, 0.07%, 0.13%, and 0.01%, respectively, in 2015). Moreover, 430 suspicious workers were identified; 415 of these provided an address and phone number, of whom 48 responded (response rate, 11.6%). Among the 48 workers, 10 had diseases at the time of the survey, of whom 3 workers were believed to have diseases related to methyl alcohol exposure. Conclusion: This study revealed that active surveillance data can be used to assess health problems related to methyl alcohol poisoning in CNC processes and dispatch workers.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• 제6권4호
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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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• 제5권2호
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• pp.43-52
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• 2014

Because information on biological agents in the workplace is lacking, biological hazard analyses at the workplace to securely recognize the harmful factors with biological basis are desperately needed. This review concentrates on literatures published after 2010 that attempted to detect biological hazards to humans, especially workers, and the efforts to protect them against these factors. It is important to improve the current understanding of the health hazards caused by biological factors at the workplace. In addition, this review briefly describes these factors and provides some examples of their adverse health effects. It also reviews risk assessments, protection with personal protective equipment, prevention with training of workers, regulations, as well as vaccinations.

• 한국산업보건학회지
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• 제33권4호
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• pp.464-470
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• 2023

Objectives: This study evaluated occupational exposures to noise and heat stress during routine non-outage works in three coal-fired power plants in the Republic of Korea. Methods: The data were collected during the summer of 2020. Full shift noise exposure of 52 workers were measured using noise dosimeters. Heat stress of 16 worksites were measured for 70 minutes using wet-bulb globe temperature monitors. Results: The noise dosimetry results revealed time-weighted averages that ranged from 47.5 to 88.9 dBA. 2 out of 52 noise measurements exceeded 85 dBA. Based on the arithmetic mean, the coal service group showed the highest level at 80.2 dBA by job tasks. Noise exposures exceeding 85 dBA were measured in the coal service and plant operator group. Heat stress index measurements ranged from 20.3℃ to 37.2℃. 1 out of 9 indices measured in coal facilities and 4 out of 7 indices measured in boiler house exceeded 1 hour TWA during moderate work. Heat stress indices measured from boiler houses were significantly higher than those measured from coal equipment. Conclusions: The results show that overexposure to noise and heat stress may be encountered during routine non-outage work activities in coal-fired power plants. Appropriate actions should be taken to reduce future health outcome from occupational exposure to noise and heat stress in the industry.

• 한국산업보건학회지
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• 제11권2호
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• pp.102-110
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• 2001

To establish an accurate asbestos analysis method for workplace samples, chrysotile, amosite, crocidolite, tremolite, actinolite, and anthophyllite asbestos fibers were analyzed for their morphology, atomic content and electron diffraction patterns. The morphology of asbestos fiber was evaluated in $10,000{\times}$ magnification. The atomic contents was analyzed by X-ray analyzer (TEM-EDX). Asbestos fibers were further assessed using electron diffraction (ED) patterns to provide an additional criterion for classifying the asbestos fibers. Twenty asbestos fibers were initially randomly selected for morphological evaluation; based on an aspect ratio (length : diameter = 3:1). Then the fibers were determined for their EDX spectrums and ED patterns. Our results showed that only chrysotile fiber has a hollow tube structure to be distinguished from other asbestos fibers. Although asbestos fibers had similar morphology, they had different EDX spectrums and ED patterns. Our results on the atomic content of asbestos fibers were very similar to those of other researchers, but amosite and crocidolite had a little difference in atomic content compared with the results from other researchers. The difference may be due to the difference in equipment or asbestos sample selection. A study on asbestos samples from biological specimens to establish a criterion for determining occupational asbestos exposed diseases should be done in the near future.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• 제6권2호
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• pp.157-157
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• 2015

• 한국산업보건학회지
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• 제25권3호
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• pp.254-284
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• 2015

Objectives: There is a requirement to select target materials for mutagenicity(Genotoxicity) testing, so we determined to set the test priorities of them by searching the related database. Methods and Results: We searched a number of databases to find information on mutagenicity tests with chemicals under the Occupational Safety and Health Act(OSH Act), such as KOSHANET, National Toxicology Program(NTP), European Chemicals Agency(ECHA), US National Library of Medicine(NLM), and Genetic Toxicology Data Bank(GENE-TOX), as well as ChemIDplus webpage, and presented the information. Also we anticipated their hazards with ACToR sites to confirm the 58 mutagenicity(Genotoxicity) tests we will perform. Conclusions: We presented target materials for mutagenicity testing with specific GLP tests consisting of reverse mutation(Ames), chromosomal aberration and micronucleus test.