• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
• /
• v.23 no.4
• /
• pp.45-56
• /
• 2004

The purpose of this study is to evaluate perceived discomfort of working postures in terms of upper body (back, shoulder, and elbow) flexions when an external load varies. Eighteen subjects participated in an experiment of appraising perceived discomfort of varying upper body postures with three levels of external loads given. The ANOVA results showed that the perceived discomfort of upper body postures was significantly affected by the external load. It was also apparent that the interactions between external load and upper body posture were significant (p< 0.001). The result implies that a new posture classification scheme for workload assessment methods may be in need to reflect such interactions between external load and upper body posture. In order to support the statement, a regression model of perceived discomfort of upper body postures obtained from the experiment was developed and compared to that of perceived discomfort of seven work-related postures found in automobile assembly operations. The correlation coefficient between predicted and actual values of perceived discomfort was about 0.96. It is expected that the result help to properly estimate the body stress resluting from worker's postures and external loads and can be used as a valuable design guideline on preventing work-related musculoskeletal diseases in industry.

• Journal of Navigation and Port Research
• /
• v.30 no.5 s.111
• /
• pp.405-414
• /
• 2006

The purpose of this study was to find out morbidity rate and pattern of occupational disease and affect of variables related disease of Fishing crew The subjects this study were 624 Fishing crew who took education course in Korea Institute of Maritime and Fisheries Technology. This questionnaire was focused on finding the basic data for prevention of occupational disease and promotion health on the Fishing crew The collected data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics, Chi-square, cross tab by SPSS package. The result of this study are as follow. 1)The morbidity rate within recent 12 months was 70.2%. there were significant differences of occurred disease in age, rank, perceived health status, fatigue symptoms, rest time, workload, overtime duration 2) the more aging(p<0.01), perceived fatigue(p<0.01), workload(p<0.01), overtime(p<0.05) and the less perceived health status(p<0.01), rest time(p<0.01), the higher morbidity rate 3) Considering disease unable to work more than 4 hour, the number of those who had musculoskeletal disease were 20.9%, which revealed the highest rate, digestive disease 14.3%, traumatic disease 13.5%.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Navigation and Port Research Conference
• /
• 2006.06b
• /
• pp.29-38
• /
• 2006

The purpose of this study was to find out morbidity rate and pattern of occupational disease and affect of variables related disease of Fishing sailors' The subjects this study were 624 fisheries sailors' who took education course in Korea Institute of Maritime and Fisheries Technology. This questionnaire was focused on finding the basic data for prevention of occupational disease and promotion health on the fishing sailors' The collected data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics, Chi-square, cross tab by SPSS package. The result of this study are as follow. 1)The morbidity rate within recent 12 months was 70.2%. there were significant differences of occurred disease in age, rank, perceived health status, fatigue symptoms, rest time, workload, overtime duration 2) the more aging(p<0.01), perceived fatigue(p<0.01), workload(p<0.01), overtime(p<0.05) and the less perceived health status(p<0.01), rest time(p<0.01), the higher morbidity rate 3) Considering disease unable to work more tlnn 4 hour, the number of those who had musculoskeletal disease were 20.9%, which revealed the highest rate, digestive disease 14.3%, traumatic disease 13.5%.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
• /
• v.16 no.5
• /
• pp.180-193
• /
• 2016

The purpose of this study was to identify the utilization of school health room and the health problems among elementary and secondary school students as years go by sex, school locations, and to analyze the frequency and difficulty of nursing interventions performance that school health teachers was available to resolve students' health problems at school health room. Participants were fifty nine school health teachers with more than 3 years of career. As the years go by, utilization of school health room has gradually increased. Utilization of female than male was higher than 200%, i.e. Elementary school girls in urban area were the highest rate, and secondary school boys in urban area were the lowest. In male, utilization of school health room was in order the skin and subcutaneous, musculoskeletal, and digestive problems, and also was in order the skin and subcutaneous, digestive, and musculoskeletal problems in female. Utilization of in urban elementary school was higher on patricular health problem than in suburban areas. Nursing interventions of most often using were self-care management & education and counselling. Nursing intervention was the highest degree of difficulty in self-harm, seizure, circulatory health problems. In conclusions, utilization of school health room has gradually increased; therefore workload of school health teacher aggravated. To perform a heath teacher to effectively operate the general and emergency health issues, the expansion of qualified school health teachers is needed, and the standardized guidelines and refresher training programs is required.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
• /
• v.24 no.4
• /
• pp.556-565
• /
• 2014

Objectives: This study is aimed at inquiring into the grasp of real condition of working environment and improvements by calculating the hypertension distribution consequent on job stress risk and exposure level of alleviating factors. In addition, this study is intending to estimate the hypertension distribution through socio-demographic factors and level of stressors occurring at working environment, such as high workload, low control, low support, job insecurity, long working hours, low income. Methods: This study estimated the hypertension distribution using the tertiary Korean Working Conditions Survey data, and conducted comparative analysis according to the category of individual questionnaire items using odds ratio. Result: As a result of study, it was found that in the event that working environment satisfaction is low and business & an immediate superior's attitudes are negative, the hypertension distribution was high. Particularly, it was found that physical risk factor musculoskeletal risk factor, and mental risk factor in a workplace were all increasing the hypertension distribution. Conclusions: With the aged workers' labor market participation ratio increasing, hypertension could be a major issue in the field of Occupational Safety and Health. Thus, it's necessary that the relevant employer should lower the hypertension distribution through creation of pleasant working environment and inducement of workers to improve in the relations with their superiors. As for the uppermost limit of this study, there is a limit to clarifying the mechanism of hypertension through multivariate statistics analysis because it's difficult to establish causal relationship by individual questionnaire item as the working conditions survey is made by cross-sectional study. In the follow-up research, this study is going to do research on the mechanism of hypertension through questionnaire supplementation and in-depth analysis.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
• /
• v.24 no.3
• /
• pp.11-27
• /
• 2005

The objectives of this study are to analyze representative wrist postures while using hand tools and parts at general assembly processes, to evaluate perceived discomfort on the wrist when external loads are present, and to suggest an evaluation and prediction model of perceived discomfort. Sixteen subjects participated in an experiment to appraise perceived discomfort. Three types of the wrist postures with five levels of non-neutralities were analyzed when five levels of external load were applied to each posture. The ANOVA results showed that the perceived discomfort of wrist postures was significantly affected by both the wrist posture and external load (p$<$0.001). It was also shown that some of the interactions between external loads and the wrist postures(Flexion/$Extension^*$Load, Flexion/$Extension^*$supination/pronation, ulnar/radial $deviation^*$supination/pronation) were significant(p$<$0.001). The result implies that a new posture classification scheme for workload assessment methods may be needed to reflect such effects of external load and wrist posture. A regression model of perceived discomfort was developed with respect to wrist posture and external load from the experimental data. A subsequent experiment revealed that the correlation coefficient between the predicted values of perceived discomfort from the model and the actual values obtained from the experiment was about 0.98. It is expected that the results help to properly estimate the body stress resulting from worker's postures and external loads and can be used as a valuable design guideline to analyze potential hazard of musculoskeletal diseases in industry.

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

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
• /
• v.16 no.2
• /
• pp.183-192
• /
• 2006

Predicting energy expenditure (EE) is important to prevent work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs). The problem to predict EE is that the standard of EE is based on western data. The authors checked average EE by job categories to provide basic data for suggesting proper work intensity for Korean workers. This study was conducted from 2003 to 2005. Study subjects were recruited from 4 car parts assembly plant, 2 car assembly plant, 2 Heavy machine manufacturing plant and 2 shipyards. Total study subjects were 515 male workers. To estimate VO2max, sub-maximal test was conducted to measure VO275%max by bicycle ergometer (Combi Co, Aerobike 75XL II). Heartbeats were recorded with heartbeat recorder (Polar Electro Co, Finland, S810) during work. EE of work was calculated by recorded heartbeat and individual regression equation which was derived from sub-maximal test. Subjects were classified into 4 industry and 8 work posture, 23 job task categories. Mean EEs (S.D.) according to industry classification (kcal/min) were 4.9 (0.7), 4.8 (0.7), 4.9 (0.7), 5.0 (0.9), and 4.0 (0.5) for Car Part manufacture, Car Assembly, Ship Building, Heavy Machinery Manufacture, and Hospital Office, respectively. The results suggest that Korean male workers of exceeding to the NIOSH criteria will be needed to plan for job rescheduling to maintain $worker^{\circ}$Øs health. Further study to establish Korean work intensity standard would be needed.

• Journal of the Korean Dietetic Association
• /
• v.17 no.3
• /
• pp.229-242
• /
• 2011

The purpose of this study was to investigate the status of the safety system and safety education in institutional foodservices in the Changwon and Masan areas. The survey was conducted from February 1 to March 31, 2009 via questionnaires that were sent to 300 dietitians, and 142 dietitians responded. It was determined that most of the safety managers were 'dietitians (87.1%)', whereas facilities/equipment managers consisted of 'dietitians (45.7%)', 'department of facilities management in the organization (36.4%)' and 'outsourced company of facilities management (17.9%)'. Out of the 11 safety practices, seven safety practices showed less than 50% of total implementation ratio, which meant that the safety systems were not functioning properly. Except for 'non-skid shoes (85.9%)', other safety equipment was seldom used. The survey respondents recognized that safety education was very necessary (4.47 points); however, they responded so-so (3.46 points) to the question of whether or not the actual frequency and time spent on safety education were enough. The average time spent on safety education was 28 minutes 11 seconds. Regarding the difficulties in performing safety education, 'not many safety education materials and media (3.44 points)', 'not many varieties in the subjects and contents for safety education (3.40 points)', and 'not much organizational support on safety education (3.33 points)' showed higher scores than 'lack of education time due to workload (3.20 points)'. The following were cited as education materials that should be developed as it is currently difficult to obtain relevant information and data: 'root causes of musculoskeletal injury and preventive measures (15.8%)', 'healthcare and disease preventive exercises for employees who do simple and repetitive works (14.9%)', and 'instruction on safe handling of chemicals (12.7%)'

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
• /
• v.28 no.1
• /
• pp.9-19
• /
• 2009

Repetitive movement, inadequate working posture, overuse of force, physical contact with sharp edge, vibration and temperature were well known risk factors of WMSDs (Work-related Musculoskeletal Disorders). Many researchers have investigated the relationship between inadequate working postures and incidences of WMSDs of the upper extremities, whereas relatively few researchers have tried to evaluate workload associated with the lower-body postures. The effects of lower-limb postures including various knee flexion angles on the subjective discomfort, heart rate and EMG of lower-limb muscles were investigated in this study. Thirty graduate students were asked to maintain thirteen different body postures, and heart rate and EMG data of five muscle groups (electro spine, biceps femoris, vastus medialis, gastrocnemius and tibialis anterior) from each posture were collected during fifteen minutes sustaining tasks. All participants were also asked to report their discomfort ratings of body parts. Results showed that high subjective discomfort ratings and heart rates were reported at the postures of knee angles of $60^{\circ}$ and $90^{\circ}$, whereas low discomfort ratings were founded at the postures of chair heights with 20cm, 40cm, and sitting with crossed legged. The change of median frequency for each muscle group during fifteen minutes tasks was investigated for each body posture to evaluate the relationship between muscle fatigue and body posture. It was found that the trends of changes of median frequency were different based on muscle group as well as lower-limb body posture from this study.