• Journal of Korean Institute of Industrial Engineers
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.413-423
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• 2001

Low back disorders (LBDs) are one of the most common and costly work-related musculoskeletal disorders. One of the major possible risk factors of LBDs is to work with static and awkward trunk postures, especially in a complex trunk posture involving flexion, twisting and lateral bending simultaneously. This study is to examine the effect of complex trunk postures on the postural stresses using a psychophysical method. Twelve healthy male students participated in an experiment, in which 29 different trunk postures were evaluated using the magnitude estimation method. The results showed that subjective discomfort significantly increased as the levels of trunk flexion, lateral bending and rotation increased. Significant interaction effects were found between rotation and lateral bending or flexion when the severe lateral bending or rotation were assumed, indicating that simultaneous occurrence of trunk flexion, lateral bending and rotation increases discomfort ratings synergistically. A postural workload evaluation scheme of trunk postures was proposed based on the angular deviation levels from the neutral position. Each trunk posture was assigned numerical stress index depending upon its discomfort rating, which was defined as the ratio of discomfort of a posture to that of its neutral posture. Four qualitative action categories for the stress index were also provided in order to enable practitioners to apply corrective actions appropriately. The proposed scheme is expected to be applied to several field areas for evaluating trunk postural stresses.

• The Korean Journal of Health Service Management
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.205-216
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• 2016

Objectives : The purpose of this study was to determine the association between musculoskeletal workload and job stress in early childcare teachers. Methods : This study was based on The Korean Working Condition Survey conducted on wage workers. The total number of individuals included in the analysis was 395 (286 childcare teachers and 109 kindergarten teachers) early childcare teachers in 2011. The collected data were analyzed by frequency statistic, cross-tabulation analysis and logistic regression. Results : The adjusted odds ratio showed a statistically effective association for job stress exposure. The results were as follows: education level, service environment, emotional labor, fatigue or posture led to pain for a high level of job stress. Additionally, for childcare teachers, the results showed that fatigue or posture led to pain when moving a heavy object frequently. Conclusions : When childcare teachers are assigned a task to lift heavy or awkward or objects, care should be taken on who is assigned the task, and it should be done safely. An intervention program should be developed to train childcare teachers to safely and efficiency do heavy labor in early childcare education classes.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Industrial Safety Conference
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• 1998.05a
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• pp.307-312
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• 1998

In forklift operations, awkward postures due to backward driving may put drivers to the risk of CTD or low back pain. In this research, 6 forklift drivers were surveyed with OWAS for objective posture evaluation and bodymaps for self-report evaluation. The backward driving happened more frequently than forward driving as expected, and, as work hours passed by, the drivers naturally tended to assume the easier work postures in inverse proportion to the frequency of the backward operations. According to the results of OWAS, 60 % of the work postures in the forklift operations belonged to the category II, III, and IV classified serious. Especially, in the backward driving, the postures with the neck twisted over $45^{\circ}$ occupied 82.4 %. In addition, discomfort on the neck, left shoulder, and low back was frequently reported in the self-reports.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.21 no.4 s.76
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• pp.108-113
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• 2006

The Work-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders(WMSDs) have been an rising issue since the 1970s. So many manufacturing companies have been tried to improve the work environments for the control and the prevention of the WMSDs. Specific risk factors associated with WMSDs include repetitive motion, heavy lifting, forceful exertion, contact stress, vibration, awkward posture and rapid hand and wrist movement. But recently it has reported that besides working conditions, job stress is the important hazard causes which lead to WMSDs. This study investigates the relation between WMSDs and Job stress from 1426 workers in Heavy Industry. Job stress was evaluated by Karasek's model. Job stress was associated with job satisfaction. Job demand was associated with the WMSDs, but job control was not associated with the WMSDs. The results can be used to design the management program for the WMSDs and the job stress.

• IE interfaces
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.197-208
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• 1997

In workplace design, an ergonomic solution should ensure low postural stress in the operator during his/her work. Stress caused by awkward working postures of the trunk, shoulders and legs can result in fatigue, discomfort, musculo-skeletal disorders and nerve entrapment syndromes. Since discomfort and musculo-skeletal disorders are both related to exposure to biomechanical load on the musculo-skeletal system, minimization of discomfort will contribute to reduction of the risk for musculo-skeletal disorders as well. Therefore, in this study, perceived discomfort on the human body joints was measured in the standing postures using the magnitude estimation in order to have a standardized numerical scale for joint discomfort. Nine healthy graduate students participated voluntarily in the laboratory study. The results revealed that perceived discomfort of all the joints increased as the joints deviated from neutral position. Especially, it showed drastic increment on perceived discomfort when deviation from neutral position in each human body joint increased from 75% to 100%. in terms of relative range of motion(R0M). On the basis of these experimental results, a preliminary ranking for assessment of stressfulness of non-neutral postures around the human body joints was suggested.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.149-153
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• 2003

Recently, work-related musculoskeletal disorders(WMSDs) are one of major issues in occupational safety and health in Korea. Main risk factors of WMSDs include manual handling of heavy weight loads, awkward posture, repetitive tasks, Prolonged static muscle contraction, and so on. The number of injured workers has rapidly increased and the related regulation was amended to improve the work conditions and environments. And demands for workers' compensation and improvement of work conditions and environment to prevent WMSDs have increasingly been raised. This study focused on managerial system to prevent WMSDs. Literal survey and questionnaire survey were accomplished to propose a management system in Korea for preventing WMSDs.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.440-447
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• 2022

Background: Agricultural handle equipment is present on all production areas' farms. They are handy and portable; however, excessive use can lead to acute traumas or accidental injuries. Repetitive movements, awkward postures, and hand-arm vibrations predispose them to pain and work-related musculoskeletal disorders. The purpose of this study was to observe the interaction of handle equipment in terms of electromyographic activity and analyze the postural work-related alterations. Materials and methods: Twenty male agricultural operators, mean age 24±1.54 years, underwent the electromyographic analysis testing their muscular activities with a brushcutter, electric saw, and hedge trimmer in four different test conditions. Results: The brushcutter proved to be the agricultural handle equipment with the higher mean frequency (3.37±0.38 Hz) and root mean square (5.25±1.24 ms^-2). Furthermore, the digital postural analysis showed a general asymmetry of the main arm and the respective side of the trunk. The head resulted right inclined in the anterior frontal plane by 5.7°±1.2°; the right scapula lower than the left in the posterior frontal plane (8.5°±1.8°), and a working trunk inclination of 34.15°±5.7°. Conclusions: Vibrations of handle equipment and awkward working postures represent a risk for agricultural operators. Preventive measures are required to avoid young operators from experiencing musculoskeletal disorders all lifelong.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.225-239
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• 2010

A high prevalence of farmer's work-related musculo-skeletal disorders (MSDs) have been reported in precedent studies. Risk factors - physical, chemical, biological, ergonomic risk factor etc. - in farm-work were identified by previous studies. To prevent farmers from exposing to them and reduce, Agricultural Safety Technology were introduced and used on farm. The purpose of this study is to review and summarize the agricultural safety technology on farm in Korea. According to strategy principles, this technology is classified as four criteria - workload reduction by reducing awkward posture, workload reduction by using manual material handling aids, Comfort improvement by protecting worker from hot, cold environment and work efficiency improvement by workplace redesign and cultivation modification. This technology includes transporting tools, working cloth, personal protective equipment, and pesticide-proof Clothing. Anthropometric study of Korean farmers was also carried out to support the development of equipment and clothes. In long terms, it needs to precaution activity from risk factors by using cultivation modification and working improvement. Although working condition gets better and workload reduce by this technology, it required customized safety technology in each crops - rice cultivation, horticulture and livestock farming. And farmers should use the assistive technology and participate voluntarily in ergonomic intervention program.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.24-35
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• 1998

Cumulative trauma disorders(CTDs) have been a growing problems for US and European industries with higher incidence rate every year. The increase and their associated costs has led companies to form committes and implement programs to address this problem. In our country, we have just started to recognize and to work on the problems in industry. This study conducted an ergonomic analysis for typical jobs of ship building industry which was not usually surveyed for CTD problem. A baseline CTD checklist which was supposed to do a risk assessment was developed and applied in this study. Initially, we considered five major parts in the checklist which consisted of personal, frequency, posture, force, and miscellaneous information. Most jobs in ship building industry were much different from typical assembly work and VDT work that have been major part of the previous CTD studies. Specifically, job characteristics in terms of frequency and posture were quite different. There were relatively long cycle time, awkward postures for whole body (not just for upper extremities). Also, CTD risk scores based on checklist were a lot higher than the scores for VDT jobs which was a case of preceding application of the checklist. Specifically, grinding jobs turned out to be the most risky one in terms of CTDs. In conclusion, usual CTD prevention guidelines are not likely to he effective in this type of industry. An individual job based interventions are strongly suggested to have a good control of CTD problems in ship building industry.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.45-59
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• 2007

The operating tasks of overhead crane have caused undue stress to the operators from physical, mental, and environmental workload. Existing workload assessment models for musculoskeletal disorders such as OWAS, RULA, and QEC have limited applicability to the crane operating tasks because they focus mainly on physical factors and do not consider the relative importance of each factor. The present study was to develop a workload assessment model customized to overhead crane operation, following a systematic process: (1) analyzing task characteristics, (2) selecting workload factors, (3) developing assessment methods, (4) establishing action levels, and (5) computerizing the assessment model. Based on literature review, worksite survey, and focus group interview, 4 physical factors (awkward posture, static posture, repetitive motion, and excessive force), 6 mental factors (visual demand, auditory demand, task complexity and difficulty, time urgency, work schedule related stress, and safety related stress), and 4 environmental factors (noise, vibration, dust, and temperature) were selected and their rating scales and relative weights were determined. Then, based on the workload assessment results of 8 overhead cranes operated at different workplaces, the action levels of each factor category were established. Finally, the crane operation assessment model was computerized for effective analysis and report preparation. The present approach is applicable to develop a customized workload assessment model for an operating task under consideration.