• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.50 no.6
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• pp.1056-1063
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• 2012

Recent rapidly growth in nanotechnolgies is promised novel benefits through the exploitation of their unique industrial and biomedical applications. With increasing utilization of nanomaterials in consumer products, the potential release of nanomaterials into the environment and their impacts on the ecosystem and human health have been the issues of concern. Nanomaterials that was exposed unintentionally in environment might be accumulated in various environmental media, and finally it will be influenced to human and ecosystems. Therefore, it is important to understand the fate and behavior of nanoparticles for understanding effects on environmental media (air, water, and soil phase). Therefore, in this work, we investigated the several cases for environmental exposure of nanomaterials and suggested the direction of further research. In workplace, exposure to air media is dominant, but finally waste and wastewater was moved to the water and soil phase. In addition, we found the existing sewage treatment plant was not suitable to remove completely nanomaterials in wastewater flow. To deeper study, environmental monitoring tool must be developed additionally and we suggested the several analyzing method for aged and pristine physicochemical properties of nanomaterials exposed into environmental media. This review for nanomaterials' exposure to environmental media will be helpful to investigate the environmental fate of nanomaterials and define the suitable treatment method for nano-waste.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.299-317
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• 1989

This study was attempted to find out the distribution of industrial nurses, analyze job performance by function and utilization state of medical dispensary among workers. The subjects for this study were 32 nurses working at industry located in Kyungpook and Taegu area. The data was collected through questionaire during the period of August 5-31, 1986, and analysed by the method of frequency and percentage. The following is the main findings of the study; 1. 72.2% of respondents was engaged in manufacturing industry, 33.3% in workplace whose regular workers was more than 2,000 workers. 67.7% in occupational health physicians was part-time system. 2. 93.1% of respondents was 20-29 years age group, 93.1% was graduates of junior nursing college, 96.6% was unmarried. 448% had 1-4 years of total working experiences. 3. For the motives which made them becomes industrial health nurse, 'good employment condition' was 62.1%. For the job satisfaction, 'moderate' was 586%. For the interest about the industrial health, 'moderate' was most frequent (58.6%). In the inservice education, 86.2% of the subjects was received education. 4. For the attitude of the dispensary and industrial nursing of employer, 'necessary' was most frequent (72.4%, 62.6%). 5. All establishment had dispensary facilities, 65.5% of them had independent dispensary. 6. In duty shift, 93.1% of respondents was working in one shift system. 41.4% of respondents was received from 250,000 won to 290,000 Won and 41.4% was belong to personnel section and 24.1% was direct controlled by general business section chief. 7. In the main health problem of their factories, 48.3% of respondents was work-environmental state, 24.1% was health education. 8. In the Dispensary budget, 60% of respondents was under 3,000 won per worker. 9. In the job performance rate by function, nursing service 73.1%, industrial health and nursing management 63.7%, environmental hygiene and safety management 54.5%, medical insurance 44.9%, welfare 38.4%. 10. Main health complaints among workers utilizing medical dispensary was 35.9% of respiratory system, 21.5% of gastro-intestinal system, 11.0% of skeletomuscular system.

• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.195-211
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• 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 significant health behaviors affecting workers' job-related stress in Korean manufacturing industry with the national survey data conducted by the Korean Occupational Safety and Health Agency in 2003. A total of 7,818 factory workers in 1,562 manufacturing companies participated in the Korean nation-wide occupational health survey and 3,390 workers answered that they had any stressors in their workplace among the 7,818 workers finally participated in the analysis. Participants were selected by the stratified proportional sampling process by manufacturing industry classification, company size, and company locations (8 metropolitan and 8 non-metropolitan regions) in Korea. Trained interviewers visited the target companies and interviewed the factory workers randomly selected in each company. Smoking, drinking, weight control, exercise, sleeping, break time at work, and perceived fatigue were included in the health behavior construct. Stress symptoms was consisted of physical and psychological stress with 8 items. All survey responses were anonymously coded into the SPSS statistical program and testified using stepwise multiple regression analysis. Male workers were 73.5% and the 30s were 40.0% among the age groups. The married and the high school graduate were majority with 52.1% and 61.8% each. Current smokers were 44.7% and More than 50% of the participants drank alcohol sometimes. No exercise group was 59.3% and the participants who dissatisfied with their daily sleeping hours were 43.5%. In t-test and analysis of variance, the significant general characteristics associated with physical and psychological job stress were young age (p<0.001), single marital status (p<0.001), and short working period at the present company (p<0.001). The health behaviors related to physical job stress were current smoking, weight change during the past one year (p<0.001), weight control effort (p<0.001), exercise (p<0.001), daily sleeping dissatisfaction (p<0.001), break time, and perceived fatigue (p<0.001). All 10 health behavior factors were significantly associated with psychological job stress (p<0.05). Weight change, weight control effort, exercise, daily sleeping dissatisfaction, little break at work, and high perceived fatigue were significant factors affecting job stress. Daily sleeping dissatisfaction, little break at work, little exercise, weight change for the past one year and young age were selected as the significant health behavior and general factors affecting physical job stress symptoms in stepwise multiple regression analysis. The five factors explained 18.9% of the physical stress score variance. Six factors were selected as the significant health behaviors affecting psychological job stress: daily sleeping dissatisfaction, little exercise, frequent drinking alcohol, high perceived fatigue, little break at work, and little weight control effort. The six factors explained 10.6% of the psychological stress score variance.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.550-561
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• 2019

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to provide basic data for the improvement of the working environment for health prevention and related countermeasures for shift workers. This study was conducted based on the Fifth Korean Working Conditions Survey (KWCS), which analyzed the health effects of shift work forces and compared them with preceding studies. Methods: By analyzing secondary rates using raw data from the 5th KWCS, 4,870 (9.7%) of the 50,184 total study subjects were divided into shift work and 45,314 (90.3%) non-shift work groups based on the response to shift status. Variables that could affect work health issues were identified and corrected. A cross-analysis was conducted to examine demographic characteristics (gender, age, and education level) of the workers and occupation characteristics (monthly net earnings, employment type, occupation, working period up to now, workplace scale, type of work system, and weekly working hours). In order to find the work health issue ratio between the shift and non-shift work groups, logistic regression was analyzed and the association with health problems according to shift type by gender was looked at through cross-analysis. Results: According to the surveys conducted from the 1st KWCS (2006) to the 5th KWCS (2017), the proportion of shift workers continued to increase. Also, muscular pains in the lower limbs (hips, legs, knees, feet, etc.) (OR=1.135, 95%CI 1.031-1.251), headaches, eyestrain (OR=1.580, 95% CI 1.428-1.748), anxiety (OR=1.715, 95% CI 1.402-2.099), difficulty falling asleep (OR=1.391), and other problems (OR=7.392) were reported. In addition, back pain, muscular pains in shoulders, neck and/or upper limbs, muscular pains in lower limbs (hips, legs, knees, feet, etc.), headaches, eyestrain, depression, anxiety, overall fatigue resulted in significant results for both male and female shift workers. Depression and anxiety were higher in female shift/circulation compared to males. Conclusions: The social nets for the health and safety of shift workers should be explored in a variety of ways, including management and supervision of shift sites, attempts to reorganize and improve the shift system, development of workers' health recovery programs, promotion, systematic treatment, and compensation systems.

• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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• v.4
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• pp.48-57
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• 1995

The purpose of this study was to assess the performance of the role and function of some industrial nurses and to characterize the factors affecting the performance of their activities. Thus the results could be used to suggest the direction in the performance of industrials nurses' activities effectively. During a period from January 10 to March 31, 1994, the data were collected from 87 industrial nurses, who were working as health managers in the plants, in Ulsan city and the vicinity in Kyungnam province, using a structured questionnaire. The results were as follows : 1. The general characteristics of industrial nurses in this study were 82.8% being 30 years old or less, 60.9%, being not married, and 93.1% having eduction levels above junior college. 2. With respect to general work conditions, 94.3% were working in a separate room provided for health care division, 40.2% working under the safety and health department, and 98.9% working as common-level staffs. And 60.9% were working less than 44 hours a week, 70.1% had work experiences less than 5 years, and 50.6% had annual incomes ranging 10 to 14 million wons. 3. As work conditions related to health care activities, 49.4% performed the activities not related to health care as always or occasionally, and 87.4% answered that occupational physicians were appointed in their plant and among them, however, only 6.9% worked on full-time basis and 52.8% perform little activities as occupational physicians. For a decision related to health care activity, 69.0% discussed the problems with the supervisors, and 19.5% made decisions by themselves. 4. As for attitude and perception to their activities as health managers, 66.7% moderately recognized the importance of health manager in the workplace, with 63.2% being satisfied their wages and treatment from the company, 57.5% being satisfied with their job positions and 51.7% having positive attitudes as being health managers. 5. The degree of performance at least in one of health related activities were very high in activities such as general medical care(100%), general health examination(98.0%) and specific health examination(100%), and relatively high in health education(72%), new employee health examination(60.9%), document handling(79.3%) and activity for work environment(70.1%). However, the performance rate was very low in preparing protective equipment (20.8%). 6. The levels of activities related to health care were significantly high when making decisions by themselves, when occupational physicians not being full-time, and when satisfying their job positions, and, on the other hand, significantly decreased as work hours increased. 7. In addition to some kinds of periodic education asked by all of the nurses, 89.7% wanted a specialized licensing system for industrial nurse, and 97.4% wanted to apply for the license test. As a conclusion, it is suggested that industrial nurses should be given more authority and placed in more self-controlled system to perform health care and other activities more efficiently, and the role and function of the occupational physician should be clearly distinguished from that of the industrial nurse as a health manager to avoid an unnecessary overlapping.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.153-161
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• 2009

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate 1) blood lead levels of workers at auto repair shops as Biological Exposure Indices (BEI) of toxic substances such as lead and toluene that are produced during automotive painting process, 2) the differences depending on personal characteristics of workers who have been exposed to toluene by using urine hippuric acid concentration as a marker and 3) the correlation between the concentration of hazardous chemicals in each workplace and the BEL. All subjects were male with a mean age of 36.2 years. In terms of age, most were in the 30 to 40 age group (13 persons, 48.1%). In relation to the length of work experience, the highest proportion had experience of 10 years of less (18 persons, 66.7%). Twenty three workers were cigarette smokers (85.2%) while 4 (14.8%) were non-smokers. In addition, more than 80% of the workers drank alcohol. Dust concentration and toluene exposure during automotive painting showed no significant difference with age, length of work experience, smoking and drinking while a significant difference (p<0.05) has been detected between lead concentration and smoking. The geometric mean of dust concentration, lead concentration and toluene concentration were $0.38mg/m^3,\;0.0021mg/m^3$ and 1.08ppm respectively. In addition, the geometric mean of blood lead levels and urine hippuric acid concentration were $1.70{\mu}g/dl$ and 0.25g/g respectively, which were lower than the standard levels suggested by the Ministry of Labor. To determine the influential factors on blood lead and urine hippuric acid concentrations, a correlation analysis has been conducted with variables of air, lead and toluene concentrations, age, length of work experience and amount of cigarette smoking. According to the analysis, a relatively high correlation (p<0.01) has been observed between air lead concentration and biological sample concentration.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.857-864
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• 2019

Many countries, including Canada, operate a sonographer license system separately from a radiological technologist license. However, in Korea, radiological technologists perform ultrasound imaging under the guidance of doctors. Therefore, in order to have the opportunity to provide a systematic education by analyzing the job competency of the radiological technologist's ultrasound imaging, based on the Canadian National Competency Profile (NCP) lists, this study measured the job content validity of the job competences and detailed competencies required for performing ultrasonography in Korea. From the results of comparing and analyzing the importance of the core competencies included in the Korean radiological technologist's job competencies and the degree of job performance, the average overall importance was 4.087, the average of overall performance was 3.640, showing that the importance was higher than the performance and that there was a statistically significant difference. In conclusion, 'A Communication', 'B Professional responsibilities', 'D Operation of equipment' and 'G Workplace health and safety' showed high job content validity. However, it is said that as 'C Patient assessment and care', 'E Critical thinking and problem solving', and 'H Image' showed low job content validity, it is necessary to seek ways to strengthen and complement these competencies.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.59 no.4
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• pp.521-531
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• 2021

Vacuum Pressure Impregnation (VPI) is a process that enhances physical properties by coating some types of epoxy resins on windings of stator used in large rotators such as generators and motors. During vacuum and pressurization of the VPI process, resin gas is generated by vaporization of epoxy resin. When the tank is opened for curing after finishing impregnation, resin gas is leaked out of the tank. If the leaked resin gas spreads throughout the workplace, there are safety and environmental problems such as fire, explosion and respiratory problems. So, exhaust system for resin gas is required during the process. In this study, a case study of exhaust efficiency by location of vent was conducted using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) in order to design a system for exhausting resin gas generated by the VPI process. The optimal exhaust system of this study allowed more than 90% of resin gas to be exhausted within 1,800 seconds and reduced the fraction of resin gas below the Low Explosive Limit (LEL).

• The Journal of Korean Society for School & Community Health Education
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.49-60
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• 2021

Objectives: Laboratories have various latent physical, chemical, biological, and ergonomical factors according to the diversification and fusion of research and development activities. This study aims to investigate the chemical exposure concentrations of college laboratories and evaluate their health risks, and use them as basic data to promote the health of college students. Methods: The sampling and analysis of harmful chemicals in the air in laboratories were performed using Method 1500 of the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)의 Method 1500. The harmful chemicals in the laboratories were divided into carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic chemicals. Risk assessment was performed using the cancer risk (CR) for carcinogenic chemicals and using the hazard index (HI) for non-carcinogenic chemicals. Results: The harmful chemicals in college laboratories consisted of acetone, diethyl ether, methylene chloride, n-hexane, ethyl acetate, chloroform, tetrahydrofuran, toluene, and xylenes. They showed the highest concentrations in laboratories A (acetone 0.001~2.34ppm), B (chloroform 0.95~6.35ppm), C (diethyl ether 0.08~8.68ppm), and D (acetone 0.07~14.96ppm). The risk assessment result for non-carcinogenic chemicals showed that the HI of methylene chloride was 2.052 for men and 2.333 for women, the HI of N-hexane was 4.442 for men and 5.05 for women. Thus, the HI values were higher than 1. The risk of carcinogenic chemicals is determined by an excess cancer risk (ECR) value of 1.0×10^-5, which means that one in 100,000 people has a cancer risk. The ECRs of chloroform exceeded 1.0×10^-5 for both men and women, indicating the possibility of cancer risk. Conclusion: College laboratories showed the possibility of non-carcinogenic health risks for methylene chloride, n-hexane, tetrahydrofuran (THF), toluene, and xylenes, and carcinogenic health risks for chloroform, methylene chloride. However, this study used the maximum values of measurements to determine the worst case, and assumed that the subjects were exposed to the corresponding concentrations continuously for 8 hours per day for 300 days per year. In consideration of the nature of laboratory environment in which people are intermittently exposed, rather than continuously, to the chemicals, the results of this study has an element of overestimation.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.112 no.2
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• pp.217-229
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• 2023

Forest projects often apply construction industry labor rates, without considering the demanding work conditions and labor intensity unique to forest operations, resulting in workplace issues. This study aims to analyze forest operations' characteristics and wage survey methods in other fields to establish a framework for surveying the wages of forest workers. The developed framework was tested through direct surveys conducted with all forest operation companies. Survey items included actual wages by occupation, identification and removal of outliers using quartile deviation, and occupation-based wage calculation. Results revealed that the appropriate wages for 2022 were as follows: KRW 163,376 for general workers, KRW 221,407 for special workers, KRW 250,045 for work leaders, and KRW 239,863 for wood cutters. These figures were 16.27% higher than those derived from the standard construction wage survey. The developed framework was validated by comparing the appropriate wages with both the standard construction wage survey and the forestry workers' wage. The results indicated that the wages calculated using the developed framework were 4.5% more similar to the forestry workers' wage compared with those from the standard construction wage survey. Consequently, the standard construction wage survey was deemed unsuitable for forest projects. To ensure efficient forest operations, it is imperative to conduct wage surveys using the developed framework over multiple years to accumulate sufficient data.