• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.224-231
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• 2018

Background: Organizations are pursing complex and diverse aims to generate higher profits. Many workers experience high work intensity such as workload and work pressure in this organizational environment. Especially, psychological burden is a commonly used term in workplace of Republic of Korea. This study focused on defining the psychological burden from the perspective of occupational safety and health and tried to develop a scale for psychological burden. Methods: The 48 preliminary questionnaire items for psychological burden were prepared by a focus group interview with 16 workers through the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire II and Mindful Awareness Attention Scale. The preliminary items were surveyed with 572 workers, and exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and correlation analysis were conducted for a new scale. Results: As a result of the exploratory factor analysis, five factors were extracted: organizational activity, human error, safety and health workload, work attitude, and negative self-management. These factors had significant correlations and reliability, and the stability of the model for validity was confirmed using confirmatory factor analysis. Conclusion: The developed scale for psychological burden can measure workers' psychological burden in relation to safety and health. Despite some limitations, this study has applicability in the workplace, given the relatively small-sized questionnaire.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.99-103
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• 2014

Recently unemployed construction workers are increasing because of construction recession. But the lack of manpower occurs at the same time, in construction sites. So, the excess of workforce supply and demand exists in construction sites. Construction companies have a difficulty in seeking young skilled workers due to this problem. In this study, construction accidents reported by Korean Occupational Safety and Health Agency from 2007 to 2010 were analyzed. It has shown that 50-54, 45-49 and 55-59 year old workers formed 22%, 18% and 17% respectively. This means that old workers becomes a real problem in construction. This research has shown that old workers didn't have much more accidents than young workers, construction accidents related to the employment period of workers.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.106-115
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• 2022

This study is to investigate factors that influence job performance of hair salon workers such as self-leadership, empowerment, and self-efficacy. Data were collected by distributing 450 questionnaires to hair salon workers in the S. Excluding the questionnaires with insufficient responses, 433 copies were used for analysis with SPSS 26.0 for Windows. The survey was conducted from March 21 to 27, 2022. As a result of the analysis, first, the self-leadership of hair salon workers was found to have an effect on job performance. Second, the empowerment of hair salon workers was also found to have an effect on job performance. Third, the self-efficacy of hair salon workers was found to have an important effect on job performance. This study is expected to contribute to the development of hair salon workers by identifying ways to maximize job performance and increasing customer satisfaction.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.277-281
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• 2005

Air-line mask is an important personal protective equipment for workers working under hazardous surroundings in which a fixed ventilation system is difficult to be installed. If the air-line mask make loud noise, works wearing the mask may be faced with health problems such as noise induced hearing loss(NIHL). The purpose of this study is to introduce a low noisy technology for workers using air-line mask. A traditional type air-line has been improved to an advanced air-line mask with lesser noise. In the mask, air suppling conduits consists of multi tubes are placed inside of the front of the safety helmet. The noise level reduced from 80dB(A) to less than 80dB(A) when measured by KS A 0701 method at Center for Safety Inspection, Testing and Certification for KOSHA. It is suitable for related regulation[Article 35 of the Industrial Safety and Health Act(Test of Personal Protective Equipment)]. While workers working in noise level of over 90dB(A), they may expose to 82dB(A) or less when they wear the advanced masks. This type masks can be an alternative for works suffering from loud noise generated by traditional air-line masks.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.315-322
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• 2013

Objectives: This study was conducted in order to prepare fundamental data and assess the short-term effects of applying cerebrovascular disease prevention programs by the Ministry of Employment and Labor and the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency (KOSHA) in Korea. Methods: The number of study subjects was 2,676 workers (58.5%) who were able to evaluate the level of incidence risk at pre- and post-applications of the program, among the 4,576 total workers who were enrolled in the cerebrovascular disease prevention program during 2011. The guidelines for this prevention program were adopted from KOSHA GUIDE H-1-2010. To determine the program' effectiveness, the workers'risks for cerebrovascular disease were assessed pre- and post-application of the program. Results: The blood pressure level was significantly reduced by 4.09 mmHg for the mean systolic blood pressures and 5.47 mmHg for diastolic blood pressures, respectively. The mean level of total cholesterol and BMI were also reduced significantly by 2.07 g/dl and 0.1 $0.1kg/m^2$. The rate of smoking was decreased by 4.0% and the percentage of workers engaging in regular exercise was increased by 29.8%. The level of overall cerebrovascular disease risk was reduced among 1,451 (70.7%) of 2,052 workers at low risk and above. The level of cerebrovascular disease risk was lower in the improved group for health behavior than the unimproved group (odds ratio =1.7, p < 0.001). Conclusions: The author considers that the application of the cerebrovascular disease prevention program by the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency reduced cerebrovascular diseases risks among workers who were enrolled in the cerebrovascular disease prevention program and it must be accompanied by an improvement in health behavior for prevention of cerebrovascular disease.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.49-55
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• 2023

This study aims to analyze research trends related to the exhaustion of hotel employees and social workers and present the tasks and directions of future exhaustion research for hotel employees and social workers. To this end, 423 candidates for registration and registration of the Korea Research Foundation from 2012 to 2022 and master's and doctoral dissertations (178 papers) were analyzed according to the research period, research topics, research subjects, and research methods. As a result, from 29 papers in 2012, 49 studies were published in 2013, and 53 studies in 2020, indicating that they are gradually rising. Second, job burnout was the highest among hotel employees and social workers, followed by interpersonal relationships, practice, career, techno, safety accidents, and job burnout. Third, hotel employees and social workers were the highest among the subjects related to the exhaustion of hotel employees and social workers, followed by hotel employees and social workers. Fourth, quantitative research was conducted the most as a method for the exhaustion of hotel employees and social workers, and qualitative research was conducted a lot. According to these research results the study suggests that it is necessary to rediscover the meaning of research on burnout of hotel employees and social workers, which directly affects hotel employees and social workers, and to find ways for hotel employees and social workers to feel less burnout.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.537-548
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• 2020

Currently, radioactive waste for disposal has been restricted to low and intermediate level radioactive waste generated during operation of nuclear power plants, and these radioactive wastes were managed and disposed of the 200 L and 320 L of steel drums. However, it is expected that it will be difficult to manage a large amount of decommissioning waste of the Kori unit 1 with the existing drums and transportation containers. Accordingly, the KORAD is currently developing various and large-sized containers for packaging, transportation, and disposal of decommissioning waste. In this study, the radiation exposure doses of workers and the public were evaluated using RADTRAN computational analysis code in case of the domestic on-road transportation of new package and transportation containers under development. The results were compared with the domestic annual dose limit. In addition, the sensitivity of the expected exposure dose according to the change in the leakage rate of radionuclides in the waste packaging was evaluated. As a result of the evaluation, it was confirmed that the exposure dose under normal and accident condition was less than the domestic annual exposure dose limit. However, in the case of a number of loading and unloading operations, working systems should be prepared to reduce the exposure of workers.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.135-147
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• 2011

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to evaluate cancer risks in the Korean semiconductor industry. Methods: A retrospective cohort study was performed in eight semiconductor factories between 1998 and 2008. The number of subjects was 113,443 for mortality and 108,443 for incidence. Standardized mortality ratios (SMR) and standardized incidence ratios (SIR) were calculated. Results: The SMR of leukemia was 0.39 (95% Confidence Interval 0.08-1.14) in males (2 cases) and 1.37 (0.55-2.81) in females (7 cases). The SMR of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) was 1.33 (0.43-3.09, 5 cases) in males and 2.5 (0.68-6.40, 4 cases) in females. The SIR of leukemia was 0.69 (0.30-1.37, 8 cases) in males and 1.28 (0.61-2.36, 10 cases) in females. The SIR of NHL in females was 2.31 (1.23-3.95, 13 cases) and that of thyroid cancer in males was 2.11 (1.49-2.89, 38 cases). The excess incidence of NHL was significant in female assembly operators [SIR=3.15 (1.02-7.36, 5 cases)], but not significant in fabrication workers. The SIR of NHL in the group working for 1-5 years was higher than the SIR of NHL for those working for more than five years. The excess incidence of male thyroid cancer was observed in both office and manufacturing workers. Conclusion: There was no significant increase of leukemia in the Korean semiconductor industry. However, the incidence of NHL in females and thyroid cancer in males were significantly increased even though there was no definite association between work and those diseases in subgroup analysis according to work duration. This result should be interpreted cautiously, because the majority of the cohort was young and the number of cases was small.

• Journal of Radiation Industry
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.509-518
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• 2023

The Kori Unit 1 nuclear power plant, which is planned to be dismantled after permanent shutdown, is expected to generate a large amount of various types of radioactive waste during the dismantling process. For the disposal of Very-low-level waste, which is expected to account for the largest amount of generation, the Korea Radioactive waste Agency (KORAD) is in the process of detailed design to build a 3-phase landfill disposal facility in Gyeongju. In addition, a large container is being developed to efficiently dispose of metal and concrete waste, which are mainly generated as Very low-level waste of decommissioning. In this study, based on the design characteristics of the 3-phase landfill disposal facility and the large container under development, radiation exposure dose evaluation was performed considering the normal and accident scenarios of radiation workers during operation. The direct exposure dose evaluation of workers during normal operation was performed using the MCNP computer program, and the internal and external exposure dose evaluation due to damage to the decommissioning waste package during a drop accident was performed based on the evaluation method of ICRP. For the assumed scenario, the exposure dose of worker was calculated to determine whether the exposure dose standards in the domestic nuclear safety act were satisfied. As a result of the evaluation, it was confirmed that the result was quite low, and the result that satisfied the standard limit was confirmed, and the radiational disposal suitability for the 3-phase landfill disposal facility of the large container for dismantled radioactive waste, which is currently under development, was confirmed.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.108-113
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• 2021

Background: This study aimed to investigate the relationship between changes in employment status and new-onset depressive symptoms through a one-year follow-up of permanent waged workers. Methods: We analyzed the open-source data from the Korea Welfare Panel Study. Using the 2017 data, we selected 2,314 permanent waged workers aged 19 to 59 years without depressive symptoms as a base group. The final analysis targeted 2,073 workers who were followed up in 2018. In 2018, there were five categories of employment status for workers who were followed up: permanent, precarious, unemployed, self-employed, and economically inactive. Multiple logistic regression was used to determine the association between employment status change and new-onset depressive symptoms. Results: Adjusted multiple logistic regression analysis showed that among male workers, workers who went from permanent status to being unemployed (odds ratio: 4.50, 95% confidence interval: 1.19 to 17.06) and from permanent status to being precarious workers (odds ratio: 3.15, 95% confidence interval: 1.30 to 7.65) had significantly high levels of new-onset depressive symptoms compared with those who retained their permanent employment status. There were no significant increases in new-onset depressive symptoms of male workers who went from permanent status to being self-employed or economically inactive. On the other hand, no significant differences were found among female workers. Conclusion: Our study suggests that the change of employment status to precarious workers or unemployment can cause new-onset depressive symptoms in male permanent waged workers.