• Journal of Korea Society of Industrial Information Systems
• /
• v.20 no.4
• /
• pp.55-65
• /
• 2015

An increase in patients' medical expenses for their injury. accident and intoxication is a major challenge to improve the sustain-ability of a national health security system, and increasing medical expenses need be suppressed through improving relevant systems and/or efficiently operating and managing the health insurance. At this juncture, in Korea which has a high rate of injury incidence and mortality, it is necessary to estimate social and/or economic costs for injuries with a focus on their social effects. This research has examined the results of a Korea medical panel investigation conducted in 2008, which largely surveyed of the actual conditions of outpatients' medical use for their injury, accident and/or intoxication and investigated relevant medical expenses, with a view to estimating the directly incurred costs when the patients use medical services and the production loss costs caused by an production decline and others, so that social and/or economic costs for injuries may be ultimately aggregated.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
• /
• v.34 no.3
• /
• pp.83-88
• /
• 2019

The 7,993 cases of Survey Report of Fatal Industrial Accidents conducted jointly by the MEOL and the KOSHA for the recent seven years(2007-2013) were categorized according to personal and occupational characteristics, industry types, business sizes, job types, activities at the time accident, types of accidents, material agents(assailing materials), unsafe conditions, and unsafe acts. And it is found that among the 72.2 percent of fatal occupational accidents in the construction and manufacturing industries are caused by falling, sticking, bumping and being caught under objects & overturning. For this study, through the empirical analysis on causes of fatal industrial accidents, was used to identity high risk groups based on total data of 7,993 victims of occupational accidents. An annual fatal occupational injury (FOI) rate per 10,000 workers was about 0.47‱. The middle-aged group and the elderly group showed the highest FOI rates per 10,000 workers (0.73‱, 0.80‱), and the daily workers showed the highest FOI rate (1.46‱), and the craft and related trades workers showed the highest FOI rate (2.17‱). In case of industry type the mining industry (7.26‱) showed the highest FOI rate, followed by the sewerage, waste management, materials recovery and remediation activity industry (3.91‱) and the construction industry (2.71‱). The primary high risk target group that requires a strategy designed to reduce fatal occupation injuries caused by falling and bumping & contact(collision) is the construction industry, and the secondary high risk target group in the construction industry is classified as the equipment, machine operating and assembling workers in the construction industry, those aged 50 years old and above need the prevention measures against bumping & contact(collision) and being caught under an object & falling(objects), while those aged less than 50 years old need prevention measures against falling(persons).

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
• /
• v.29 no.2
• /
• pp.236-250
• /
• 2019

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of intensive rehabilitation programs on pain, range of motion (ROM), lumbar muscle strength, core muscle endurance, disability, and depression in patients with traumatic low back injuries and to compare the efficacy of this therapy with that of conventional rehabilitation therapy. Methods: The study was performed with a retrospective medical chart review of patients with traumatic low back injury referred to the rehabilitation center at the Daegu Hospital of the Korean Workers Compensation and Welfare Service. Forty-four patients were allocated to either the conventional rehabilitation group (CRG; n = 22) or the intensive rehabilitation group (IRG; n = 22). The CRG group patients, who received 30-min therapist-supervised physical therapy and modality therapy five times per week for four weeks, were compared with the IRG group patients, who received 60-min therapist-supervised physical therapy, 30-min therapist-patient 1:1 matching rehabilitation therapy, and modality therapy five times per week for four weeks. Outcome measures were a numerical rating scale, ROM, lumbar muscle strength, lumbar core muscle endurance, thickness of lumbar deep focal core muscle (transverse abdominis and lumbar multifidus), Oswestry disability index (ODI), and depression (Korean version patient health questionnaire-9). Results: There were statistically significant improvements after treatment in all outcome measures in both groups (p < 0.05). In the intergroup comparison, NRS scores on the activity and thickness of lumbar deep focal core muscles increased significantly more in the IRG than in the CRG (p < 0.05). There were no statistically significant intergroup differences in NRS scores on resting, ROM except left lateral bending, lumbar muscle strength, core muscle endurance, ODI, and depression. Conclusions: We could confirm the superior effectiveness of an intensive rehabilitation program compared to conventional rehabilitation therapy in patients with traumatic low back injuries.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
• /
• v.25 no.3
• /
• pp.405-417
• /
• 2015

Objectives: The aim of this study is to evaluate the association between physical factors, working conditions and occupational injuries among Korean workers. Methods: We used data from the 2nd Korean Working Conditions Survey, conducted in 2010. A total of 7,114 workers over 15 years of age were selected from among 10,019 Korean workers. The participants were interviewed using questionnaires. A multiple logistic regression model was used to analyze the associations among physical factors, working conditions and occupational injuries. Results: After the adjustment of socio-demographic factors, the odds ratio of injuries through physical factors such as vibration (adjusted Odds Ratio [aOR] 4.037, 95% CI 2.30-7.09), noise (aOR 4.562, 95% CI 2.64-7.89), high temperature (aOR 3.262, 95% CI 1.86-5.73), and low temperature (aOR 3.358, 95% CI 1.76-6.41) were greater in the exposed group than in the non-exposed group. The odds ratios of occupational injury(aOR 5.272, 95% CI 3.19-8.7 for very high speed work, aOR 3.303, 95% CI 1.95-5.60 for tight deadlines, and aOR 3.641, 95% CI 1.72-7.70 for not enough time to work) increased with increased work demands. Conclusions: In this study, physical factors such as vibration, noise, and high and low temperatures were significantly correlated with occupational injuries according to the increase in exposure intensity(p for trend <0.001). Also, working conditions such as high-speed work, tight deadlines and insufficient time to work showed significant associations with occupational injuries(p for trend<0.001).

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
• /
• v.14 no.4
• /
• pp.176-181
• /
• 1999

The objective of this study is to compare and analyze the industrial injury-values of all the industries through yearly accident rate and frequency rate based on the governmental documentation of industrial injuries. The samples for this study are chosen from the companies with less than 200 employees under charge of the Kangnung Ministry of Labor during the period of 1995-97. Safe-T-Score is used for statistic control on the qualitative comparison of the present and the past industrial injury-rates. In the comparison of the past and the present industrial injury-rate by means of Safe-T-Score, this study shows that there does not exist any remarkable improvement, whereas the document of the Ministry of labor reports that the rate is decreasing greatly. Therefore, this study proposes some solutions to reduce industrial disasters and points out the necessity of more practical and effective methods to analyze the industrial disaster.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
• /
• v.30 no.5
• /
• pp.86-91
• /
• 2015

It is important to provide the farmers with practical and effective information of safety and health for individual crop to prevent or reduce occupational injuries in agricultural sector, since work characteristics and risk factors are not the same for all crops. In this study, risk assessment was carried out for cultivating shiitake mushrooms and then safety measures, which were based on the results of the risk assessment, were summarized and presented as the information of safety and health of shittake farmers. Guidelines for safety and health of the farmers of shiitake mushrooms, which were developed based on the risk assesment and safety measures, can be used by the farmers as self-educational tools or by the agricultural facilitators as an educational material for agricultural safety. It is expected that the guidelines can be useful in preventing occupational injuries of shiitake farmers.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
• /
• v.35 no.3
• /
• pp.155-163
• /
• 2016

Objective: This study aims to draw the characteristics of occupational accidents occurred in cabling work, and assess accident severity based on occupational injury data. Background: Accident factors and accident risk are different by the place of work in cabling work. Field managers require information on accident prevention that can be easily understood by workers. However, there has been a lack of studies that focus on cabling work in Korea. Method: This study classifies 450 injured persons caused in cabling work by process, and analyzes the characteristics of occupational injuries from the aspects of age, work experience and accident type. This study also analyzes accident frequency and severity of injury. Results: Results show that preparing/finishing (33.3%) was the most common type of cabling process in injuries, followed by maintenance (28.4%), routing/income (23.1%) and wiring/installation (15.1%) process. The critical incidents in the level of risk management were falls from height in the routing/incoming process, and falls from height in the maintenance process. And, incidents ranked as 'High' level of risk management were slips and trips, fall from height and vehicle incident in the preparing/finishing process, and fall from height in the wiring/installation process. Conclusion and Application: The relative frequency of accident and its severity by working process serve as important information for accident prevention, and are critical for determining priorities in preventive measures.

• International Journal of Safety
• /
• v.4 no.2
• /
• pp.43-46
• /
• 2005

The construction workers might be at the risk of many occupational injuries and illnesses. To protect workers from various hazards, industrial health and hygiene systems were specified for the construction workers by law. It is important to know the actual health and safety(H&S) conditions by tasks and the characteristics of injuries and illnesses of construction workers. This study was designed to investigate the actual conditions of construction workers exposed to various harmful substances and work elements including evaluation of health status of each worker and general H&S system. Questionnaire was sent to 600 construction workers nationwide and totally 367 people responded to it having 61.67% of response rate. The common construction hazards were dust(29.6%), noise(19.3%), repetitive motions(12.0%), handling excessive heavy materials(11.2%) in order. The repetitive motions and handling heavy materials related to muscle disorders accounted for 23.2%. The accident and injury types were in order of overexertion, falling, overturning, dropping or flying, electric shock, collision, etc.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
• /
• v.28 no.4
• /
• pp.139-145
• /
• 2009

This study concerned with the characteristics and causes of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) for employees aged 50 years or older. In order to do this, based on 8,011 accident analysis reports, we analyzed the differences of characteristics between groups under 50 years and 50 years or more in terms of gender, occupation, duration of employment, part of body, industry, size of business and work-related factors. Results show that the distributions of the injuries aged 50 years or older are statistically different from those of the injuries under 50 years. Also, older employees have high relationship between repetition, or contact stress/vibration and upper extremity MSDs. These findings can be used to develop more effective MSD prevention programs for older employees.

• Safety and Health at Work
• /
• v.1 no.2
• /
• pp.107-111
• /
• 2010

This paper provided a brief summary of the current strategic goals, activities, and impacts of the NIOSH (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health) occupational injury research program. Three primary drivers (injury database, stakeholder input, and staff capacity) were used to define NIOSH research focuses to maximize relevance and impact of the NIOSH injury-prevention-research program. Injury data, strategic goals, program activities, and research impacts were presented with a focus on prevention of four leading causes of workplace injury and death in the US: motor vehicle incidents, falls, workplace violence, and machine and industrial vehicle incidents. This paper showcased selected priority goals, activities, and impacts of the NIOSH injury prevention program. The NIOSH contribution to the overall decrease in fatalities and injuries is reinforced by decreases in specific goal areas. There were also many intermediate outcomes that are on a direct path to preventing injuries, such as new safety regulations and standards, safer technology and products, and improved worker safety training. The outcomes serve as an excellent foundation to stimulate further research and worldwide partnership to address global workplace injury problems.