• Journal of the Korea Institute of Building Construction
• /
• v.17 no.2
• /
• pp.191-197
• /
• 2017

The safety nature of construction industry differs from that of manufacturing sector. For instance, accident risk level dramatically varies at each phase of construction process. Korean Occupational and Health Safety Act has been regulated OHS expense and it contributed reducing accident risk and enhancing safety culture for many years. However, although current regulation guides to use OHS expense proportionate to construction progress, it still allows late use of the expense. This study was conducted for the purpose of presenting methods of estimating a step-by-step OHS expense rate required at each construction phase. In order to do provide proper OHS expense schedule, it analysed accident risk of each construction phase by sorting out 1439 cases of construction site fatality reports, and proposed a method of generating appropriate OHS expense scheme according to its construction work progress characteristics. Both linear and sigmoidal S-curve model were used for the analysis, and the latter generally requires earlier use of OHS expense. By comparing the estimated OHS expense use schedule with current criteria, more than 27%p early use of OHS expense is required for the prevention of accident.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
• /
• v.31 no.3 s.62
• /
• pp.395-403
• /
• 1998

To estimate the incidence rate of coronary heart disease in Korea, of all residents in Taegu city aged 25 or above, those who had an acute MI or a fatal coronary event between 1 July 1996 and 30 June 1997 were registered. Seven hundreds and eight patients were registered during the study period(685 were identified at hospital and 23 were autopsy cases). Age-standardized annual incidence rate of men in city area was 93 per 100,000(95% CI; 61-142) and 35% CI; 16-67) in women(100 in men and 20 in women aged 35-64). The incidence was rapidly increased after age 40 in men, however, in women after age 60. Twenty-eight-days case fatality rate was 45% in men and 47% in women. However, in the age group of 45-59 case fatality rate in women was two times higher than that in men. In conclusion, crude annual incidence rate of CHD in city area was 73 per 100,000 in men and 33 in women. The age-standardized annual incidence of CHD in men(93 per 100,000) was 2 times higher than that in women (33 per 100,000) in Korea.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
• /
• v.20 no.3
• /
• pp.17-30
• /
• 2002

Incident duration prediction is one of the most important steps of the overall incident management process. An accurate and reliable estimate of the incident duration can be the main difference between an effective incident management operation and an unacceptable one since, without the knowledge of such time durations, traffic impact can not be estimated or calculated. This research presents several multiple linear regression models for incident duration prediction using data consisting of 384 incident cases. The main source of various incident cases was the Traffic Incident Reports filled out by the Motorist Assistant Units of the Korea Highway Corporation. The models were proposed separately according to the time of day(daytime vs. nighttime) and the fatality/injury incurred (fatality/injury vs. property damage only). Two models using an integrated dataset, one with an intercept and the other without it, were also calibrated and proposed for the generality of model application. Some findings are as follows ; ?Variables such as vehicle turnover, load spills, the number of heavy vehicles involved and the number of blocked lanes were found to significantly affect incident duration times. ?Models, however, tend to overestimate the duration times when a dummy variable, load spill, is used. It was simply because several of load spill incidents had excessively long clearance times. The precision was improved when load spills were further categorized into "small spills" and "large spills" based on the size of vehicles involved. ?Variables such as the number of vehicles involved and the number of blocked lanes found not significant when a regression model was calibrated with an intercept. whereas excluding the intercept from the model structure signifies those variables in a statistical sense.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
• /
• v.47 no.10
• /
• pp.879-889
• /
• 2014

In this study, to estimate loss of life considered flood characteristics using the relationship derived from analysis of historical dam break cases and the factors determining loss of life, the loss of life module applying in LIFESim and loss of life estimation by means of a mortality function were suggested and applicability for domestic dam watershed was examined. The flood characteristics, such as water depth, flow velocity and arrival time were simulated by FLDWAV model and flood risk area were predicted by using inundation depth. Based on this, the effects of warning, evacuation and shelter were considered to estimate the number of people exposed to the flood. In order to estimate fatality rates based on the exposed population, flood hazard zone is assigned to three different zones. Then, total fatality numbers were predicted after determining lethality or mortality function for each zone. In the future, the prediction of loss of life due to dam break floods will quantitatively evaluate flood risk and employ to establish flood mitigation measures at downstream applying probabilistic flood scenarios.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
• /
• v.8 no.1
• /
• pp.28-34
• /
• 1983

In spite of the world-wide increase of incidence of pesticide poisoning due to greater use of pesticides, the epidemiological study of pesticide poisoning in Korea has been grossly neglected. The author gained access to the medical records for two year period (1981 through 1982) from local clinics, hospitals and health centers of Kyungpook area to investigate the status of the pesticide poisoning. During these two years, there were 1,618 cases of documented pesticide poisoning, of which in 1981 were 765 and in 1982 were 853. Those in the twenties decade of age was the most frequent and the male(70%) was more liable than the female (30%). In view of manner of poisoning, occupational poisoning was 27.8%, accidental 5.6%, and suicidal 66.6%. There are three distinct groups which make up the large majority of both fatal and nonfatal cases; young children who accidentally ingest pesticides, young to middle age adult who are occupationally poisoned, and middle age to older adults who suicidally ingest pesticides. The seasonal distribution of these poisonings disclosed the peak month to be July, with August next, followed by June and September. Only 11% of cases occurred during the three-month winter season of December to February. Thus pesticide caused poison- ing was primarily a summer and early fall occurrence. During these two years, average of 67 cases of poisoning was observed monthly. Of the pesticide poisoning documented, 49% were treated with poisoning patients from local clinic and 43% from hospital. The case fatality rate of occupational poisoning was 0.9%, accidental 5.6% and suicidal 20.3%. The mean overall case fatality rate was 14.1%. Annual incidence of pesticide poisoning was 25.4 per 100,000 population in the study area. There is a nationwide need for more reliable date on pesticide poisoning. This need can only grow more acute with the passage of time because of the increasing importance of pesticides as a cause of morbidity and mortality.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Clinical Toxicology
• /
• v.4 no.1
• /
• pp.32-43
• /
• 2006

Purpose: Toxic Exposure Surveillance System (TESS) is widely used for poisoning data collection and making a counterplan. But, there were few reports about poisoning data collection using TESS in Korea. The aim was to collect poisoning data using TESS report form and investigate the recognition of emergency physician about the necessity of TESS as preliminary survey. Methods: Retrospectively, we gathered data from hospital records about the patient who admitted hospital emergency room due to poisoning. Date were gathered by paper and/or web client system report form in patients recruited by ICD-10 codes Results: From Jun 2004 to May 2005,3,203 patients were enrolled in 30 hospitals and their mean age was $44.9{\pm}20.3years$ old(male: female = 1,565: 1,638). The most frequent site of exposure was their own residence (73.2%, 2,345/3,203) and most of reported patients were older than 20 years(89.7%, 2,871/3,203). Frequent substances involved in poisoning were medication(41.9%) and pesticide(33.3%). Intentional poisoning was 60.7%(1,954). In fatality, overall frequency was 5.1%(162/3,203) and the most frequent route of exposure was ingestion(96.3%, 156/162) and the most frequent substance was pesticide(85.2%, 138/ 162). Antidotes were administered in 202 patients(2-PAM, atropine, antivenin, N-acetylcystein, vitamin K, flumazenil, ethanol, methylene blue, naloxone, calcium compound). 19 of 20 emergency physicians agreed with necessity of TESS. Conclusion: Data collection using TESS report form showed preliminary poisoning events in Korea. Frequent poisoning substance were medication and pesticide. The fatality was mainly related with pesticide ingestion. Many doctors in emergency room recognized the necessity of TESS.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Clinical Toxicology
• /
• v.7 no.2
• /
• pp.164-171
• /
• 2009

Purpose: The number of patients who take warfarin is growing and so is the number of complications. Hemorrhage is the major complication, but the clinical characteristics and outcomes have not been determined for Korean patients. Therefore, we tried to evaluate the characteristics of the patients with hemorrhagic complications after taking warfarin as anticoagulation therapy. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of the patients who visited the emergency room with bleeding complications after taking warfarin anticoagulation at the out-patient clinic for 1 year from 1 st January 2008. We compared between two groups (the major hemorrhage group vs. the minor hemorrhage group) according to the clinical criteria, the unstable vital signs that required blood transfusion, transfusion more than 2 units of blood, the need for further laboratory follow-up, the need for interventional treatment and the development of critical complications or death due to bleeding. Results: There were 150 patients who met the criteria and had acute hemorrhagic complications (the major group: 90 patients and the minor group: 60 patients). In the major hemorrhage group, the frequent sites of bleeding were the gastro-intestinal system (40 patients), lung (14 patients) and intracranium (7 patients). At the emergency room, the major group showed a higher initial INR of the activated prothrombin time than did the minor group (p=0.02). The bleeding sites of the fatal cases were the gastro-intestinal system (3 patients), lung (3 patients) and intracranium (3 patients), but the percentage of fatality was the highest for intracranium bleeding. Conclusion: In the major hemorrhage group, gastrointestinal bleeding was the most frequent complication and fatality was the highest for intracranium bleeding. An initially higher INR showed a greater risk of major bleeding, but not more fatalities.

• Health Policy and Management
• /
• v.33 no.2
• /
• pp.173-184
• /
• 2023

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has been challenging the healthcare service, i.e., the vitalization of the point of care accompanying self-testing in vitro diagnostic medical devices (IVDs). This study aims to suggest priority criteria to classify self-testing IVDs using the analytic hierarchy process technique. Methods: Two dimensions of the characteristics embedded in the IVDs and the diseases to be diagnosed with self-testing IVDs were parallelly considered and independently investigated. In addition, three expert panels consisting of laboratory medical doctors (n=11), clinicians (n=10), and citizens (n=11) who have an interest in the selection of self-testing IVDs were asked to answer to questionnaires. Priorities were derived and compared among each expert panel. Results: First of all, ease of specimen collection (0.241), urgency of the situation (0.224), and simplicity of device operation (0.214) were found to be the most important criteria in light of the functional characteristics of self-testing IVDs. Medical doctors valued the ease of specimen collection, but the citizen's panel valued self-management of the disease more. Second, considering the characteristics of the diseases, the priority criteria were shown in the order of prevalence of diseases (0.421), fatality of disease (0.378), and disease with stigma (0.201). Third, medical doctors responded that self-testing IVDs were more than twice as suitable for non-communicable diseases as compared to communicable diseases (0.688 vs. 0.312), but the citizen's group responded that self-testing IVDs were slightly more suitable for infectious diseases (0.511 vs. 0.489). Conclusion: Our findings suggested that self-testing IVDs could be primarily classified as the items for diagnosis of non-communicable diseases for the purpose of self-management with easy specimen collection and simple operation of devices, taking into account the urgency of the situation as well as prevalence and fatality of the disease.

• The Journal of The Korea Institute of Intelligent Transport Systems
• /
• v.22 no.5
• /
• pp.19-29
• /
• 2023

The accident rate in South Korea is simply classified according to the road type and the number of lanes, but other countries apply various factors affect accidents. In this study, national highways where accidents occurred were divided into urban, rural, older, and modern roads using TAAS(Traffic Accident Analysis System) data, and a model of accident costs savings is suggested. As a result of analyzing 1,416.2 km, the fatality rate(person/100mil-vehicle·km) was 4.21 for urban-older, 1.37 for urban-modern, 2.18 for rural-older, and 0.99 for rural-modern roads. The rates of urban roads had a higher result than rural. The injury rate(person/100mil-vehicle·km) for urban-older was 182.63, that for urban-modern was 103.42, that for rural-older was 67.44, and that for rural-modern road was 42.96, which showed a similar pattern to fatality rates. Accident rates of a modern road were much lower than the KDI Guideline. The benefit of applying the result of this study was calculated and the valuation of accident costs savings is increased from 0.6% to 14.1%, while B/C is improved from 0.626 to 0.724.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
• /
• v.15 no.4
• /
• pp.131-136
• /
• 2013

Automobile was first introduced in 1903 in South Korea, the masses of the car was carried out rapidly compared to other countries. However, many people were killed in a traffic accidents and economic loss was occurred due to the spread of the automobile. In South Korea, 2012, traffic accident occurred 223,656 times, 5,392 fatality, 344,565 injured people. In the last five years, about 224,000 accidents per year were occurring. In other words, 610 traffic accidents occur and about 15 people pass away in one day. In addition, the proportion of traffic accidents is first place in the OECD countries and it is very high in the world. Understand occurrence tendency of traffic accident, accident frequency rate of the driver who drives more than 10 years was higher than the novice driver. In addition, as a result of examining the cause of the traffic accident, breach of safe driving obligation appears highest case (125,391 times), and followed by signal violation, break safety distance. Therefore, the majority of traffic accidents occurred by the lack of safety awareness of the driver. In this study, prevent the loss of human life and property in traffic disaster, by establish disaster prevention measures that investigated by questionnaire survey and statistical data of the state of consciousness and driving posture in response to the driving history of the driver.