• Journal of Technologic Dentistry
• /
• 제45권4호
• /
• pp.118-123
• /
• 2023

Purpose: This study proposes measures needed to implement a job-based national practical exam for dental technicians. Methods: For this study, a survey was conducted targeting 244 currently employed individuals. The current national practical test for dental technicians was divided into directions for the job-based practical test, subjects that need improvement among the current practical test subjects, items that need to be reflected in the practical test evaluation for each subject, and subjects that need to be added to the practical test. It comprised ten questions (Cronbach's α=0.801). Results: The following results were obtained. Satisfaction with the current practical test was lower than average. Future improvement should focus on job-based evaluation. The dental ceramic lab technology subject needs to be reorganized urgently, and the tasks that require evaluation for each subject are different. Moreover, if evaluation subjects are added in the future, the introduction of assessment for dental CAD/CAM (computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing) subjects was found to be the most urgent. Conclusion: In this study, the most necessary tasks of the current national practical examination for dental technicians were evaluated and the content needed for future reorganization was investigated. Future tests should be expanded to evaluate critical job areas. Furthermore, it is necessary to open new courses in fields such as CAD/CAM, as they are in high demand in the workplace.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
• /
• 제29권3호
• /
• pp.617-637
• /
• 1996

Occupational dermatosis is one of the most prevalent occupational disorders. However, the extent of the occupational dermatoses including incidences and prevalencies of each disease entity, and etiologic materials are not yet welt stated in Korea. Authors reviewed the literatures on the statistic data and reports on the occupational dermatoses, and surveyed on the occupational dermatoses in two factories, and surveyed the physicians responsible to the occupational dermatoses with formed questionnaire. The results are as follows; 1. Among medical journals published since 1964, there were 31 articles on the occupational dermatoses. Of 31 articles, 18 were case reports and all others were review articles. Of 18 case reports, 9 were epidemiologic survey. The Workers' Periodic Health Examinations revealed that prevalence of the occupational dermatoses was highest(4.36 per 10,000 workers) in 1974, but number of the cases reported were decreased sharply since 1978 with some tendency to increase since 1981. There were 2,240 reported cases of occupational dermatoses between 1966 and 1992, which is 1.90% of all the reported occupational diseases. Skin infection and injuries due to chemicals were most frequent and there were 6 cases of skin cancer. 2. In an epidemiological survey on the dermatoses among 995 workers in a metal product manufacturing factory and 225 workers in a coal chemical factory, there were 794 with dermatomycosis, 296 workers with acne, 130 workers with scar, 123 workers with deformity of toe nails. Scars, photosensitivity dermatitis, deformity of finger and toe nails, and acne were more prevalent in the metal product manufacturing factory(p<0.05). In the metal prouct manufacturing factory, workers treating organic solvents and oils had more dermatoses than those without treating the materials(p<0.05). On the skin patch performed on 16 workers in the metal product manufacturing factory, there were 8 cases of irritation dermatitis and 5 cases of contact dermatitis. Prevalence of contact dermatitis in the metal product manufacturing factory was 1.3%. 3. On the questionnaire survey, 34 dermatologists, 29 doctors of preventive medicine, and 22 family physician replied. The proportion of occupational etiology among all dermatoses assumed by the physicians were below 9%, and the most important occupational dermatosis in Korea was contact dermatitis. Main etiologic materials related to the occupational dermatosis were organic solvent, acid and alkali, and metals. The reason for the scarcity of report of occupational dermatoses were difficulty in diagnosis and physician's ignorance of the occupational etiology. They replied that to prevent the occupational dermatoses in the workplace, the use of protective devices was most important, and development of diagnostic criteria on the occupational dermatoses is urgent. Above results shows us that there is many workers with occupational dermatoses, but they are mostly unreported. Measures to prevent and manage the occupational dermatoses are not satisfactory at present. Hence, authors suggest measures for the precise diagnosis, report and prevention of the occupational dermatoses. a. Dermatologist, preventive physician, and industrial hygienist should work as a team to examine the high risk group and establish the preventive measures. b. Disease entities, diagnostic criteria of occupational dermatoses should be listed, criteria for the compensation and job fitting at recruitment should be established, and manual for the proper treatment and effective prevention of each occupational dermatosis should be developed. c. Patch test antigens against each occupational category should be developed and it should be available to any physicians responsible. d. To facilitate the diagnosis of occupational dermatoses by the doctors responsible for the Workersr Periodic Health Examination, development of standardized questionnaire, education on the techniques of the patch test, and cooperation with the dermatologist in diagnosis of occupational dermatoses is essential.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
• /
• 제39권10호
• /
• pp.1535-1544
• /
• 2010

This study was conducted to evaluate the sanitation management practices in food manufacturing companies that supply food and food ingredients to school foodservice operations. Subjects consisted of 34 food manufacturing factories located in the Daegu and Gyeongbuk areas. Sanitation performance was self-evaluated using a Likert 5-point scale. The total mean score for factory sanitation performance was 4.72. Scores for perceived sanitation management performance in the factories were as follows: management of material (4.90); personal hygiene (4.78); management of work (4.71); management of workplace and vicinity (4.68); and food and raw material transportation (4.67). Participating companies that had HACCP certification programs scored high on the following sanitation inspection items: washing and sanitation guides, adequate equipment for correct hand washing, and sanitation of raw material delivery vans. The mean frequency for employee sanitation education was 2.8 times per month. Factory managers believed that their sanitation management programs kept their food safe and that the food was produced and delivered with a high degree of safety. However, they thought that food sanitation standardization was needed in order to supply high-quality and safe food items. In terms of traceability, 58.8% of the raw materials were traceable and 61.8% of the manufactured products were traceable. Sanitation management performance scores for the participating food manufacturing companies were high, although the soybean sprouts processing companies had comparatively low scores. Management reinforcement of employee sanitation education and a sense of duty and pride among factory employees will promote adequate and appropriate sanitation management performance for food safety and quality in factories that supply food and ingredients to school foodservice operations.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
• /
• 제15권2호
• /
• pp.90-103
• /
• 2005

Objective: This study was carried out to assess the status of working environments, to improve the working environments, and to be helpful to prevent occupational disease. Methods: The authors measured the noise level, concentration of dust, heavy metals, organic solvents, and other chemicals at 95 industries (22 working processes) by type of working process in manufacturing industry of parts and accessories for motor vehicles and its engines from January to December 2003. Samples were measured and analyzed by regulations of Korea Ministry of Labor, manuals of National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Results: Results are as follows. 1. Major processes exceeding mean noise levels provided the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) Threshold Limit Value (TLV) were shakeout [97.5 dB(A)]. shot-blast [94.2 dB(A)], pressing [92.9 dB(A)], crushing [91.2 dB(A)], and cleaning [90.6 dB(A)]. 2. Mean concentrations of dusts were not exceeded to the TLV. But concentration on some points of processes as like welding (6.50 mg/m3), foundry (5.24 mg/m3) were exceeded. 3. Mean concentrations of heavy metals were not exceeded to the TLV. 4. Mean concentrations of organic solvents and chemicals were not exceeded to the TLV. 5. Improving rate for working environment were significantly higher in industries with health manager than without (p<0.05), and by increasing the year of working environmental measurement (p<0.01). Conclusions: The results suggest that working processes of exceeding to the TLV will be needed rapid improvement of the working environment, and also the others will be needed positive management of the working environment. Health managers must be recommended to employ in the workplace, and further studies for relationship between working environment and health effects for the workers must be carried out.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
• /
• 제27권4호
• /
• pp.313-323
• /
• 2017

Objectives: This study aimed to assess exposure to black carbon(BC) among forklift operators and to identify environmental and occupational factors influencing their BC exposure. Methods: We studied a total of 23 forklift operators from six workplaces manufacturing paper boxes. A daily BC exposure assessment was conducted during working hours from January to April 2017. A micro-aethalometer was used to monitor daily BC exposure, and information on work activities was also obtained through a time-activity diary(TAD) and interviews. BC exposure records were classified into four categories influencing BC exposure level: working environment, workplace, forklift operation, and job characteristics. Analysis of variance(ANOVA) was used to compare average BC exposure levels among the four categories and the relationships between potential factors and BC exposure were analyzed using a multiple linear regression model. Results: The operators' daily exposure was $12.9{\mu}g/m^3$(N=9,148, $GM=7.5{\mu}g/m^3$) with a range: $0.001-811.4{\mu}g/m^3$. The operators were exposed to significantly higher levels when they operate a forklift in a room ${\leq}20,000m^3$($AM=12.3{\mu}g/m^3$), in indoor workplaces($AM=16.3{\mu}g/m^3$), when they operate a forklift manufactured before 2006 ($AM=13.2{\mu}g/m^3$), a forklift with a loading limit of four-tons($AM=27.1{\mu}g/m^3$), with a roll and bale type clamp($AM=17.1{\mu}g/m^3$), and with no particulate filter($AM=15.7{\mu}g/m^3$). Conclusions: Occupational factors including temperature, smoking, season, daytime, room volume($m^3$), location of operating, and manufacturing era and model of forklift influenced the BC exposure of forklift operators. The results of this study can be used to minimize the BC exposure of forklift operators.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
• /
• 제21권8호
• /
• pp.342-347
• /
• 2020

Recently, as the collaborative robot has been introduced into the domestic industrial robot market, it is installed mainly in the manufacturing industry. Collaborative robots are subject to the safety regulations of industrial robots by Article 93 of the Safety Inspection of the Industrial Safety and Health Act. The sites where collaborative robots are to be installed must perform risk assessments for robots-humans, work environments, and work methods and reduce the risks according to ISO 10218-2 and ISO 12100. On the other hand, because it is early in the introduction of collaborative robots, new risks for collaborative robots have not been issued, and risk assessments are unfamiliar and difficult to apply in the workplace. The risk assessment of collaborative robots aims to identify and reduce the risk of a high probability of occurrence by focusing on the abnormal behavior of humans, human errors, equipment defects, and interlock functions. In this study, a risk assessment was applied to a domestic automobile parts production plant, and improvement measures were drawn. This risk assessment is expected to be useful for improving the safety of small businesses by continuously discovering risk assessment examples of collaborative robots.

• Journal of Labour Economics
• /
• 제29권3호
• /
• pp.75-112
• /
• 2006

We found following evidences from our empirical analysis with the Workplace Panel Survey data of the Korea Labor Institute with reference to 'discord hypothesis' which insists that employee participatory high performance work practices would strengthen not only an enterprise focus in labor-management relations but also the enterprise unionism in the labor union system or collective bargaining structures, so they would probably come into conflict with the superenterprise-oriented industrial solidarity spirit in labor unionism. First, even though there are significant positive management performance effects of high performance work practices, especially in case of mining and manufacturing industries, the positive performance effects of employee participatory work practices such as job rotation ratio of workers and 6-sigma activities were much strengthened relatively in case of non-unionized establishments. Second, the superenterprise-oriented collective bargaining system is also found to give very strong and statistically significant negative performance effects to the introduction and implementation of work teams and performance-related payment systems such as profit sharing, group incentive pay system and so on. Although there are some careful reservations in interpreting the results of our analysis because of data insufficiency, they may have important implications that the industrial labor unionism or the superenterprise-oriented collective bargaining practices exercise the bargaining power to make individual firms be negative or feel it nearly impossible to introduce the employee participatory work practices which can be very favorable to improving those management performance.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
• /
• 제25권4호
• /
• pp.505-516
• /
• 2016

With the development of nanotechnology, nanomaterials are used in various fields. Therefore, the interest regarding the safety of nanomaterial use is increasing and much effort is diverted toward establishment of exposure assessment and management methods. Occupational exposure limits (OELs) are effectively used to protect the health of workers in various industrial workplaces. This study aimed to propose an OEL for domestic multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) based on animal inhalation toxicity test. Basic procedure for development of OELs was examined. For OEL estimation, epidemiological study and quantitative risk assessment are generally performed based on toxicity data. In addition, inhalation toxicity data-based no observed adverse effect level (NOAEL) and benchmark dose (BMD) are estimated to obtain the OEL. Three different estimation processes (NEDO in Japan, NIOSH in USA, and Baytubes in Germany) of OELs for carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were intensively reviewed. From the rat inhalation toxicity test for MWCNTs manufactured in Korea, a NOAEL of $0.98mg/m^3$ was derived. Using the simple equation for estimation of OEL suggested by NEDO, the OEL of $142{\mu}g/m^3$ was estimated for the MWCNT manufacturing workplace. Here, we used test rat and Korean human data and adopted 36 as an uncertainty factor. The OEL for MWCNT estimated in this work is higher than those ($2-80{\mu}g/m^3$) suggested by previous investigators. It may be greatly caused by different physicochemical properties of MWCNT and their dispersion method and test rat data. For setting of regulatory OELs in CNT workplaces, further epidemiological studies in addition to animal studies are needed. More advanced technical methods such as CNT dispersion in air and liquid should be also developed.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
• /
• 제27권2호
• /
• pp.138-148
• /
• 2017

Objectives: Sleep quality is directly related to the health, quality of life and working capacity and is affected by age, gender, exercise, life habits. Gender dissimilarities in sleep quality are acknowledged. However, the gender difference in the quality of sleep in shift workers was not well known. Our aim was to study the less known gender differences in the quality of sleep of shift workers. Methods: 1,008 study subjects aged between 21 and 57 years among these, 637(525 male and 112 female workers) were daytime workers and 371(253 males and 118 female workers) were shift workers. Sleep quality was measured by self-report through the Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index(PSQI) and fatigue was measured by using the Chalder Fatigue Scale(CFS). All data was analyzed using SPSS version 19.0 program. The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the Occupational Safety and Health Research Institute. Results: Overall, sleep quality was found to be worse in shift workers than in daytime workers and in female than in male. Fatigue in shift female workers was significantly higher than in daytime female workers and shift male workers. In Spearman correlation analysis results, fatigue were significantly associated with gender, drink habit, regular exercise, working hours and sleep quality. With group male workers as the reference, the odds ratio(OR) for having a CFS was 2.115(${\beta}$ value=0.749, p<0.01), and subjective sleep quality, sleep latency, daytime dysfunction and PSQI were 1.541(${\beta}$ value=0.432, p<0.05), 2.297(${\beta}$ value=0.831, p<0.001), 1.798(${\beta}$ value=0.587, p<0.01) and 2.224(${\beta}$ value=0.799, p<0.01), respectively. Conclusions: Shift work played an important role in lowering the quality of sleep, and the effect was more pronounced in female workers than in male workers. Sleep quality was related to fatigue, especially sleep quality, sleep duration, sleep disturbances and daytime dysfunction were significantly related. Therefore, to improve fatigue and sleep quality of shift worker, it is necessary to improve healthy habits such as regular exercise, smoking cessation, and limited drinking. In particular, it is urgent to develop and implement a regular exercise program to reduce fatigue and improve the quality of sleep in workplace.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
• /
• 제1권1호
• /
• pp.299-317
• /
• 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.