• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.25-52
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• 2004

The work history of the workers injured in industrial accidents was recomposed by combining the database on compensation for industrial accidents with the database on employment insurance among those who were newly classified as disabled during the period from 1998 to 2000. It shows that the injured workers mainly returned to the original workplaces, and such workers had higher job retention rate. It is in contrast with the higher separation rate of the workers who started to work at the new workplace after medical recuperation. And it is found that 61% left or lost their jobs out of the injured workers who returned to work, and 77% of the job separators had job tenure less than one year. The analysis based on competing risks model shows that the workers at the smaller workplace have the shorter the employment duration, and the longer job-searching period has the negative effect on the employment duration of the job losers. In addition, the longer employment duration at the first job after medical recuperation is more effective on the reemployment and job stability after separation.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.479-489
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• 2021

Background: During 2011, a study was undertaken to assess safety conditions in Serbian underground coalmines by analysis of injury data. The study covered all Serbian coalmines, identified week spots from the aspect of safety, and recommended possible courses of action. Since then, Serbia has made changes to safety and health legislation; all coalmines introduced new preventive measures, adopted international standards, and made procedures for risk management. After 10 years a new study has been performed to analyze the impact of these changes. Materials and methods: In this study, the injuries that have occurred in the Serbian underground coal mines over the last 20 years were analyzed. Statistical data analysis was performed by IBM SPSS Statistics v23. The injuries that occurred in the last ten years were compared with the results of the previous study (2000-2009). The average values of injury rates for both periods were compared for each of the categories (severity, age, body part, qualification), and the results were presented as absolute difference or percentile difference. Results: The results showed reduction in the number of injuries in the category of 20-30 years old workers, where the new training procedures for workers, which were set by mandatory legal regulations, certainly contributed. They also showed an increase in the number of injuries in the category of old workers, which indicates that the law did not have a positive effect on this category. Conclusion: The total number of injuries is still high; therefore, it is necessary to introduce mechanization and automation in mines and have a better policy for older workers who retire later nowadays.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.24 no.65
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• pp.31-40
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• 2001

We Propose an improved shovel design to minimize physical discomfort and the risk of cumulative trauma disorder at shoveling tasks. The specifications of shovels in Korean standard data were scrutinized to check if they met the anthropometric specification of Korean population in 1997. We also applied "Body Map" pictograph and self-conscious checklist to field survey to analyze the discomfort of shoveling task. Thirty male subjects whose age were ranging from 18 to 65 voluntarily participated in the experiment. The measurement results show that shoveling workers were exposed to hazards of CTD's. Especially, when workers were involved in ditch digging and construction their trunk vend more than 120 degree. In order to compare the new designed shovel and the traditional K.S shovel, an analysis of variance was performed and we obtained very strong evidence that the new designed shovel was better in reducing physical discomfort. According to the results from electromyograrn experiment the new shovel contributed to improving subjective comfort level and reducing low back muscle fatigue. For futher study, the research may be extended to determine the relationship among shovel sharpness, type, digging motion and digging force.ing force.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.289-297
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• 2014

Objective: The purpose of this study is to identify the incidence risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in the workplace, and to suggest the prediction models for level of CVD incidence risk. Background: CVD can be caused by various factors related to personal habits such as diet and exercise, or genetics. However it can also be caused and aggravated by work, making the elimination of such risk factors at work crucial disease (KOSHA, 2013). Method: The distribution of CVD risk assessment levels of 162 workers was compared with the acquired medical examination data to discuss the necessity of assigning additional risk factors. Two alternative risk assessment models were given to enhance the accuracy of the evaluation; adjusting risk scores given in the KOSHA GUIDE H-1-2013 (alternative 1) and building a matrix of KOSHA GUIDE H-1-2013 and risk assessment results based on work condition levels (alternative 2). To verify the suggested models, medical examination results of 12 workers approved of convalescence were referred to. Results: The second alternative showed more relevance between the results and workers approved of convalescence in predicting the risk group when applied to actual heath examination data from the approved workers. The power of description of the new method for determining the risk of CVD incidence, 83.3%, is higher than that of KOSHA GUIDE H-1-2013, 25%. Conclusion: Results of this study imply that more approved workers had been from unmanaged normal groups than managed risk groups, raising the importance of CVD management. Application: The new prediction model considering working time and shift work developed in this study is expected to be a fundamental data for risk analysis and management of CVD in the workplace.

• Industrial Engineering and Management Systems
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.197-202
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• 2011

In traditional production lines, such as assembly lines, each worker is usually assigned to a particular fixed work, and decreasing the task to master the assigned work is valuated. However, when an imbalance exists between workers' speeds, if a worker delays the overall work in the production line, the production rate of the particular line will also decrease. To avoid this problem, the "Self-Balancing Production Line" was introduced. In this type of production line, each worker is assigned work dynamically, and when specific conditions are satisfied, production remains balanced. Characteristics of these lines that can be preempted at any place have already been analyzed by some researchers. A previous paper examined the situation in which only a single worker can process one machine and cannot preempt processing, and the improved policy of an ordinary selfbalancing production line, which specifies which stations workers can process and how workers can behave. This policy achieveda high production rate with only four stations and two workers (Buzacott, 2002). In that paper, worker processing stations and the behavior of a specific worker were limited, andthe paper focused only on specific stations and workers. Therefore, it is not applicable to any worker sequence. In this paper, we focus on other ways to decrease cycle time. In this kind of line, a worker processes at his or her speed. Therefore, if a worker is assigned stations according to his or her speed, the line can decrease cycle time. To do so, we relax the assumptions of this type of line and set a new condition. Under these conditions, we compare our results to the results of previous papers.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.445-450
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• 2023

Background: The impact of COVID-19 infection on workers' work function persists even after the acute phase of the infection. We studied this phenomenon in Japanese workers. Methods: We conducted a one-year prospective cohort study online, starting with a baseline survey in December 2020. We tracked workers without baseline work functioning impairment and incorporated data from 14,421 eligible individuals into the analysis. We estimated the incidence rate ratio for new onset of work functioning impairment due to COVID-19 infection during follow-up, using mixed-effects Poisson regression analysis with robust variance. Results: Participants reporting infection between January and December 2021 showed a significantly higher incidence of new work functioning impairment (adjusted incidence rate ratio: 2.18, 95% confidence interval: 1.75-2.71, p < 0.001). The formality of the recuperation environment correlated with a higher risk of work functioning deterioration in infected individuals (p for trend <0.001). Conclusion: COVID-19-infected workers may continue to experience work difficulties due to persistent, post-acute infection symptoms. Companies and society must urgently provide rehabilitation and social support for people with persistent symptoms, recognizing that COVID-19 is not just a transient acute infection.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.119-145
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• 2008

The objectives of this study were to inspect how the law effected on hospital employment system and which policy and strategy are needed to cope with the present situation as the law regarding irregular workers law has enacted for a year. To grasp the changes of employment style in hospital, 56 hospitals among 311 general hospitals were questioned in this study. And employment policy and strategy were developed by referencing examples of developed nations and other industries. The survey showed that the wage and welfare level of irregular workers in hospitals was improved compared to that in the other industries. But there were still much discrimination between regular and irregular workers. The policy direction of government is, first of all, to follow the principle of equal treatment to equal value of labour. The first feasible policy is to enforce social security. The second one is an employment promotion policy which reduces or exempts hospitals employing irregular workers from tax and insurance fee. The third one is to extend employment contract period to 3 years. and finally there are policies to permit more dispatched jobs and to expand the social insurance coverage. The strategies to solve the problem of irregular workers are as follows; 1) performance wage system, 2) guaranteeing employment by unlimited contract, 3) creating new category of workers, 4) the wage system of management by object, 5) the method of job classification. This study has a meaning in the point that it was studied on hospital which is special industrial part and analyzed the changes after enacting irregular workers law and presented management strategy for countermeaure program. In this study, it was expected to contribute to decisions-making in hospital management, especially when using human resources.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.95-99
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• 2013

Background: Work-related stress is one of the major causes of occupational ill health. In line with the regulatory framework on occupational health and safety (OSH), adequate models for assessing and managing risk need to be identified so as to minimize the impact of this stress not only on workers' health, but also on productivity. Methods: After close analysis of the Italian and European reference regulatory framework and workrelated stress assessment and management models used in some European countries, we adopted the UK Health and Safety Executive's (HSE) Management Standards (MS) approach, adapting it to the Italian context in order to provide a suitable methodological proposal for Italy. Results: We have developed a work-related stress risk assessment strategy, meeting regulatory requirements, now available on a specific web platform that includes software, tutorials, and other tools to assist companies in their assessments. Conclusion: This methodological proposal is new on the Italian work-related stress risk assessment scene. Besides providing an evaluation approach using scientifically validated instruments, it ensures the active participation of occupational health professionals in each company. The assessment tools provided enable companies not only to comply with the law, but also to contribute to a database for monitoring and assessment and give access to a reserved area for data analysis and comparisons.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.15 no.8
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• pp.2827-2848
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• 2021

Mobile Crowdsourcing (MCS) has become an emerging paradigm evolved from crowdsourcing by employing advanced features of mobile devices such as smartphones to perform more complicated, especially spatial tasks. One of the key procedures in MCS is to collect answers from mobile users (workers), which may face several security issues. First, authentication is required to ensure that answers are from authorized workers. In addition, MCS tasks are usually location-dependent, so the collected answers could disclose workers' location privacy, which may discourage workers to participate in the tasks. Finally, the overhead occurred by authentication and privacy protection should be minimized since mobile devices are resource-constrained. Considering all the above concerns, in this paper, we propose a lightweight and privacy-preserving answer collection scheme for MCS. In the proposed scheme, we achieve anonymous authentication based on traceable ring signature, which provides authentication, anonymity, as well as traceability by enabling malicious workers tracing. In order to balance user location privacy and data availability, we propose a new concept named current location privacy, which means the location of the worker cannot be disclosed to anyone until a specified time. Since the leakage of current location will seriously threaten workers' personal safety, causing such as absence or presence disclosure attacks, it is necessary to pay attention to the current location privacy of workers in MCS. We encrypt the collected answers based on timed-release encryption, ensuring the secure transmission and high availability of data, as well as preserving the current location privacy of workers. Finally, we analyze the security and performance of the proposed scheme. The experimental results show that the computation costs of a worker depend on the number of ring signature members, which indicates the flexibility for a worker to choose an appropriate size of the group under considerations of privacy and efficiency.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.415-420
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• 2022

Background: Healthcare workers perform an emotionally exhausting daily work activity, making them prone to occupational hazards, namely psychosocial ones. This study aims to assess the impact of psychosocial risk factors on healthcare workers' mental health. Methods: A cross-sectional study was developed between May and June of 2021 with 479 healthcare workers from Portuguese hospitals. The Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale was used to assess mental health, and psychosocial risks were assessed through the Health and Work Survey - INSAT. Statistical analysis was performed to identify the psychosocial risk factors related to anxiety, depression, and stress. Subsequently, a multiple linear regression was performed to identify the models that better explained psychosocial risk factors' relationship with anxiety, depression, and stress. Results: Data showed a strong exposure to psychosocial risks. Work pace and intensity, work relationships, and emotional demands stood out with higher global average percentages for yes answers to "exposure and discomfort." The analysis of the b values and p-values from the multiple linear regression shows that some cross-sectional psychosocial risks are predictors of anxiety and stress dimensions, and other psychosocial risks differ in the two mental health dimensions. However, it is important to highlight that healthcare workers still showed great joy and pleasure in performing their work activities. Conclusion: Support network development in the work environment is needed to prevent healthcare workers' emotional stress and promote their psychological well-being. Therefore, new research is essential to understand the psychosocial risks that affect healthcare workers and assess the less visible effects of work-health relationships.