• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.164-176
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• 1998

This study deals with the current medical utilization for migrant workers and the characteristics of them. The purpose of this study is to provide the basic information to establish proper medical policy. For the study self-made questionnaire was used, which was answered by 453 migrant workers working in the area of manufacturing and non-technical work in 10 cities like Seoul, Inchon, Namyangju, Sungnam, Kwangju, Pyungchon, Kunpo, Kimpo, Masuk in Kyungki-do and Chunan in Chungchungnam-do. Besides, 303 medical records of those who had visited free medical check-up center were analyzed. The period of accumulating data is 6 months, from November 1st, 1996 to April 30th, 1997. The characteristics of migrant workers and current medical utilization are analyzed by percentage and the relation between characteristics and current medical utilization were analyzed using ${\chi}^2$-test, t-test, ANOVA. The finding of this study was as follows : 1) The number of nationality was 16. The first majority was Philippians as 32.0%. Among 16 nationalities Southeastern and Northern Asians were 48.9%, Southwestern Asian was 46.5%, the rest was 7.3%. Men were 81.0%, those who are aged from 26 to 30 were 39.0%, Graduatee from high school 92.7%, Christians 56.3%, unmarried 55.4% and salary from 600,000 Won to 800,000 Won 53.8% averaging monthly payment 669,810 Won. As for their residence, those who resided over 3 years were 31.9% and the illegal residence reached 77.4%. As for Korean language, those who speak in middle level were 5.6%. 2) As for kind of work and circumstances, manufacturing was 81.1%, 4 off-days per month 72.2% and 9-10 working hours per day 42.1%. As for accommodation, residence in fabric was 62.6% and one or two members as roommate 40.2%. 3) The characteristics of health behavior showed that 89.4% of migrant workers had 3 meals, 70.9% of them did not drink alcohol, 73.5% of them did not smoke. 4) As a characteristic of health status, 71.8% of them perceived of their health. 76.1% thought that they had no illness before coming Korea. Among them who recognized their illness, those who had problem in circulatory system was 35.3%, respiratory system ENT 19.1% and nervous system 19.1%.66.2% of those having illness had already had sickness when coming to Korea. 5) During last one month, 79.2% of them were known as ones having no illness. Among the sick, those who had problem in circulatory system was 31.6%, nervous system 23.7% and respiratory system 21.1%. 60.3% of the sick were not cured at that time. 6) Sorting the symptom of those who visited free medical check up, dental care was 24.2%, orthopedic 14.0% and digestive system 13.8%. Teethache was 34.4%, stomach problem 11.6%, upper respiratory inflammation 10.2% and back pain 5.9%. Averagely they visited free medical check up 1-2 times. According to symptom, epilepsy 25.5 times, heart and vascular disease 9 times, constipation 2.8%, neurosis 2.38 times and stomach problem 2.34 times. 7) The most frequently visited medical service by migrant workers was hospital. The most mentioned reason was good healing as 36.3%. The medical service satisfied migrant workers mostly was hospital as 64.3%. The reason of satisfaction was also good healing as 45.9%. 8) 77.2% of respondents did not spend money for medical check. Average monthly medical cost was 25,100 Won, 3.7% of income. Those who had no medical security was 73.4%. In their case, 67.7% got discount from hospital or support from working place and religious organization. 9) As for the difference of medical utilization according for the characteristics of migrant workers, legal workers and no-Korean speaker used hospital more frequently. 10) Those who were satisfied most of all with the service of hospital were female workers, hinduists and buddhists, legal workers or manufacture workers. 11) Christians, those who have 3 meals or recognize themselves as healthy ones mostly had no illness. As a result, the most of migrant workers in Korea are from Asia. They are good educated but are working in manufacturing and illegal. Their average income is under 700,000 Won which in not enough for medical cost. They have no medical security and medical fee is supported by religious organization or discounted. Considering these facts the medical policy by government is to be established.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.7-16
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• 2012

The Korean GDP per capita doubled during the last 10 years. As the GDP increases, Korean health behaviors such as, eating, drinking, smoking, and exercise habits changed as well. Compared to the remarkably advanced diagnostic technologies and therapeutics during the last decade, the leading causes of death in Korea scarcely changed. Among the leading causes of death, cerebrovascular disease, heart disease, diabetes, liver disease and hypertension are closely related to health behaviors. Using the database of medical check-up between 2001 and 2010, the authors performed a longitudinal study for the prevalence rates and the trends of major chronic adult diseases among the 2,721 workers along with their health behavior. Among the diagnostic test items, fasting blood sugar, cholesterol and BMI levels showed steady increase and these three test items all showed linear trends (p<0.001). The average blood sugar and cholesterol levels were near worrying levels. Moreover, the average BMI of males was found to be at the overweight level, intimating the possibility reaching thee Obese Class I level soon if there are no aggressive counter measures. Fasting blood sugar and cholesterol levels were higher in a drinking group as compared to a non-drinking group, and the BMI levels were also higher in the drinking group and the smoking group as compared to the non-drinking and the non-smoking group (p<0.001). Finally, the authors believe that the fasting blood sugar, cholesterol and BMI levels should be designated as target monitoring test items in the medical check-up for Korean employees.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.121-134
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• 2004

A research project was conducted to study work-related musculoskeletal disorders （MSDs） at subway train repair plant in Korea. The project was consisted of 4 main parts; education on the topics of MSDs for all workers, symptom survey, medical check-up, investigation of MSD risk factors. The result of symptom survey showed that 95.2％ of the respondents complained pains on at least one part of the body. After cross-sectional analysis of various information and risk factors, 86.8％ of respondents were considered as active health surveillance level 1 that require continuous monitoring on their symptoms and working conditions. And 57.1％ of the respondents were considered as active health surveillance level 2 that needed medical check-ups for proper medical treatment. The analysis of occupational risk factors revealed that handling of heavy object (46.15％) and repeated awkward postures (46.15％) were two most contributing risk factors for the on-set of MSD at this work site followed by static strain (7.7％), and vibration and impact (3.8％). Medical examination was performed by an industrial medicine MD on 156 workers those considered as active health surveillance level 2. The result showed that 35 workers (20.7％) were considered as MSD patient group at severe level, and 68.6 workers (68.6％) were considered as moderate group and 18 workers (10.6％) were considered minor or normal group those have no symptom.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.146-155
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• 2011

Objectives: This study was conducted to investigate the association between job stress and mental health among male and female workers in a large electric manufacture company. Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out on 3,228 employees who participated in annual medical check-up working in a large electric manufacture company in Gyeonggi Province. Medical check-up and self-administrated questionnaire were performed at the same time. Korean Occupational Stress Scale Short Form (KOSS-SF) and Psychosocial Wellbeing Index Short Form (PWI-SF) were applied to assess occupational stress and mental health. Hierarchical multiple linear regression and multiple logistic regression were performed to estimate the association between job stress and mental health. Results: The proportion of high risk of mental health was 17.1% in male, and 46.9% in women. Job stress had a greater effect on mental health than other general and work characteristics. All subscales of job stress were revealed to affect mental health. Bad occupational climate and lack of reward are the strongest risk factors in mental health of male and female respectively. Conclusions: Our results suggest that job stress could affect mental health among large electronic manufacture workers.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.313-320
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• 2020

Objectives: The aim of this study is to evaluate the association between vibration exposure and skeletal muscle mass index through a single university health check-up. Methods: We used data from 134,067 male subjects who received a general health check-up or vibration exposure health check-up out of the 1,515,322 people who underwent medical check-up at a local university hospital from 2002 to 2018. Pearson correlation analysis was conducted for comparing the association between skeletal muscle mass index and demographic and hematological variables in both groups. Mixed linear model analysis after controlling demographic and hematological variables was used to analyze the differences in skeletal muscle mass index between groups at every visit over 10 years. Results: In the Pearson correlation test, the variables that showed different results when comparing the two groups were C-reactive protein (p=0.001) and glycated hemoglobin (p=0.002) in the vibration exposure group and erythrocyte sedimentation rate (p<0.001) and vitamin D (p<0.001) in the general group. After the adjustment of demographic and hematologic variables, the skeletal muscle mass index at every visit was markedly decreased in the vibration exposure group (p<0.001). Conclusions: In the vibration exposure group, the skeletal muscle mass index showed a tendency to decrease markedly over time compared to the general health check-up group, which showed that C-reactive protein and glycated hemoglobin would have an influence on skeletal muscle index in male workers exposed to vibration.

• Journal of Physiology & Pathology in Korean Medicine
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.1508-1512
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• 2009

This study was designed to analyze the results of bone mineral density test in oriental medical examination. The subjects were workers in the automobile manufacturing industry. The subjects consisted of 3,206 industrial workers who had received oriental medical examination by oriental medicine and they submitted questionnaires about drinking history and smoking history, during 9 months from March to November. They were categorized by sex, age, job class, drinking history, smoking history and exercise history. The T-scores were measured by using OSTEOPRO(BMTECH, Seoul, Korea). We analyzed the relationship between sex, age, job class, drinking history, smoking history, exercise history and the results of bone mineral density using X2-test of the SPSS Ver. 14.0. There was a positive correlation between age and osteoporosis prevalence. In job class, sales personnel were apt to have a higher prevalence of osteoporosis than factory workers and office workers. Osteoporosis rates of the drinker group showed a higher level than the non-drinker group. Bone mineral densities of non-smoker group were higher than the Smoker group. And bone mineral densities of exerciser group were higher than the non-exerciser group. They have to encourage exercise and educate the workers to quit smoking for their health promotion. Furthermore, continuous health check up needs to be done connectedly.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.196-207
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• 2009

For the estimation of prevalence state of major chronic adult disease and their relationships with drinking and smoking habits in the Korean employees, we analyzed a medical check-up data of 155,799 subjects that was accumulated during the year of 2008. In age and sex distribution of the sample, male subjects were 106,229 and female 51,827 showing the ratio of 2:1 and the majorities were 30s and 40s covering 70.7% of the total. The prevalence rates of major chronic diseases were obesity 29.8% (male 38.3%, female 12.3%), hypertension 4.1%, HBV carrier inactive 3.3%, diabetes mellitus 2.9%, hypothyroidism 1.7% (male 1.3%, female 2.4%), hyperlipidemia 1.1%, hyperthyroidism 1.4% (male 1.1%, female 2.1%), osteoporosis 1.4% (male 1.4%, female 1.4%), anemia 0.9% (male 0.3%, female 2.0%) and renal disease 0.9%. The frequency of and volume of drinking in male group were 4.6 times and 7.5 times higher than female group respectively. The 33.8% of the workers were smoking currently. In the serological tests, all the items such as AST, ALT, ${\gamma}-GTP$, LDH for liver function, Cholesterol, TG, uric acid for hyperlipidemia and BP systolic, Fasting blood sugar, BMI for metabolic syndrome were significantly higher in the more drinking and more smoking groups than other groups (p<0.001). The higher prevalence rates in male group in the liver disease seems to be strongly related with the drinking and smoking habits in male employees. We suggest that employees should rather relying on leisure or hobbies than drinking and smoking for the stress relief.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.563-576
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• 1997

This study was carried out to identify basic data for more efficient operation of comprehensive health check-up centers in the national health care system. The researcher reviewed and analyzed the main symptoms of the subjects according to sex, age, occupation and positive rate in the screening tests of a comprehensive health check-up, performed at one comprehensive health check-up center in located in a hospital. The subjects were 512 persons who had a check-up at the comprehensive health check-up, center in K university hospital in Seoul from October 2, 1996 to March 30, 1997. A questionaire developed by the researcher to obtain subject's general characteristics, main symptoms, medical examination, diagnosed disease was used as the tool for the study. The researcher analyzed the data with SPSS PC/sup +/ program. : the distribution of the subject's general characteristics and main symptoms was described with percentages and the difference between main symptoms and screening tests analyzed with X²-test, t-test, ANOVA. The result of this study are as follows : 1. For the distribution of diagnosis in males. liver disease was most frequent and hypertension was second : in females, hypertention and liver disease were not common in that order. 2. The most common complaints were indigestion in the digestive system, sputum in the respiratory system, irregular heart beat in the cardiovascular system, frequent urine in the urinary system vertigo in the hematologic system. 3. The main symptoms according to sex were for females, a statistically siguificant higher rate of complaints in the digestive system, cardiovascular system, urinary system, hematologic system, musculoskeletal, mental & nervous system as compared to males. 4. The main symptoms according to age were that in the the second decade there wara higher rate of complaints in the digestive system, and cardiovascular system than in the older age groups : and in the fifth decade more in the musculoskeletal system. 5. The main symptoms according to occupation were that formers and fishers had a higher rate of complaints in the mental and nervous system as compared to other occupation groups : and office workers, in gynecology. 6. The main symptoms according to diagnosis, were symptoms of the digestive system, frequent in liver disease : symptoms of the cardiovascular system in allergic disease. 7. The screening tests which showed the highest rates were UGI /FGS, PFT : In males a higher rate of abnormality was seen in abdominal ultrasono- graphy and in, females, in mammography. 8. In screening tests according to sex, males showed a higher positive rate for chest X-rays, and LFT, and females, in mammography, pap smear, CBC. 9. In screening tests according to age, higher positive rates of obesity, high blood pressure, chest X-ray, mammography, pap smear, FBS, CBC, urine test were seen in the fifth decade : PFT and abdominal ultrasonography in the third decade. The subjects who wanted comprehensive health check-up were not asymptomatic but had an illness with several symptoms. It is found that the most frequent diagnosed diseases were hypertention and liver disease. So proper observations must be done for them. Comprehensive health check-ups should be changed to a comprehensive examination including treatment beyond examination for those subjects with positive results.

• Journal of Korean Public Health Nursing
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.12-37
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• 1997

This study was performed to evaluate the subsidiary program on occupational health services in small scale industries. The survey of occupational health services was undertaken in 346 industries from July 1 to August 31. 1994. The major results were as follows ; 1. The subsidiary program on occupational health services The evaluation of working environments were conducted in 305 industries, $42.3\%$ of the industries had the harzardous agents exeeding TLV. Special medical examinations were done in 310 industries. the results were detected $C(33.3\%).\;D_1(0.8\%), D_2(5.4\%)$. Health management were done in 341 industries, the average visits for a industry were 3.8 times. The activities of health management were included to check of the workplace. health education, health counselling, etc. 2. The recognition of the employees and employers on occupational health services $91.5\%$ of employers and $87.0\%$ of workers felt healthy themselves. But $39.7\%$ of employers and $21.2\%$ of workers were under the stress from their jobs or home affairs. The workers perceived more harmful for the hazardous agents than the employers. $32.8\%$ of employers and $42.9\%$ of workers perceived that employer's efforts were the most important things to protect for the hazardous agents. The result of the evaluation of working environments were understood by $57.3\%$ of employers and $24.5\%$ of workers. The notification of medical examinations were recognized $83.9\%$ of employers and $50.3\%$ of workers. Many employers and workers felt the necessities of health management in small scale industries. The priorities of health manegement were different between employers and workers. Employers' priorities were as follows ; follow up care of medical examination$(97.3\%)$, health counselling$(93.7\%)$, planning of health$(93.5\%)$, health education of occupational diseases$(93.2\%)$, health education of chronic diseases$(93.5\%)$, etc. Workers' priorities were as follows ; follow up care$(93.4\%)$, health counselling$(94.3\%)$, health education of occupational diseases$(93.0\%)$. first aids$(92.0\%)$. etc.

• Journal of Physiology & Pathology in Korean Medicine
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.1178-1182
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• 2009

This study was designed to analyze the results of Vaso-Aging Degree in Oriental medical examination. The subjects were workers in the automobile manufacturing industry. The subjects consisted of 24,077 industrial workers who had received Oriental medical examination by Oriental medicine and they submitted questionnaires about drinking history and smoking history, during 9 months from March to November. They were categorized by job class, drinking history and smoking history, exercising history. The percentage of Vaso-Aging Degree were measured by using SA3000P(Medicore, Seoul, Korea). We analyzed the relationship between job class, drinking history, smoking history, exercising history and Vaso-Aging Degree using ${\chi}2$-test of the SPSS Ver. 14.0. In job class, Sales personnel were apt to have a higher level of Vaso-Aging Degree than Office workers. And getting older workers are, the higher Vaso-Aging Degree becomes. Vaso-Aging Degree of the Drinker group showed a higher level than the Non-Drinker group. Vaso-Aging Degree of Smoker group were higher than the Non-smoker group. On the other hand, Vafo-Aging Degree of Non-Exerciser group were higher than the Exerciser group. They have to manage Vaso-Aging Degree closely and educate the workers to quit smoking and drinking for their health promotion. Furthermore, continuous health check up needs to be done connectedly.