• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.119-142
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• 2013

It is not easy to regulate the amount of radiation used for the medical purpose as there usually is more good than harm to the patient's health and life caused by the medical exposure to the radiation. However, the rapid increase of the use of diagnostic radiation involves a high possibility of increasing the radiation hazard exposure. Therefore, it is imperative to implement effective regulations in order to secure the safety of diagnostic radiation. The one and only rule we currently have for the diagnostic radiation is "Medicine Act" with only one clause dedicated to regulate the safety management that does not include any rules for the medical radiation. A set of inclusive rules for the whole medical radiation inclusive of diagnostic radiation and therapeutic radiation need to be based on the "Medicine Act" rather than "Nuclear Safety Act" in order to protect the medical professionals, patients and the guardians of patients from the hazards of diagnostic and/or therapeutic radiation that was not used the purpose of medical treatment. If there is an administrative measure to be imposed to secure the safety of diagnostic radiation, it is considered as exertion of governmental authority of administrative agency. There must be clear and realistic legal guidelines for in-fringe on people's interests. The administrative measures for the safety management of the diagnostic radiation must be clearly and specifically based on the law and the detailed standards for the administrative measures must be dele-gated by the presidential decree or departmental ordinance. Accordingly, the restrictions imposed by the administrative measures to the "Safety Inspection Institute of Radiation along with Radiation Exposure Measuring Institutes" should have clear legal basis as well and the detailed standards for the administrative measures should be regulated by the Ministry of Health and Welfare decree instead of the notification by the Director of Korean Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While securing the safety of radiation on one side, careful review and up-grade on our legal system for the safety management of the diagnostic radiation is required on the other side to guarantee the legality, interest balance and reliability of the administrative measures.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.69-76
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• 2023

The purpose of the rules on the Occupational Safety and Health Standards (hereafter safety and health rules) is to regulate the safety and health measures stipulated in the Occupational Safety and Health Act and the specific instructions necessary for their implementation. However, the safety and health rules are extensive and complexly connected, making navigation difficult for users. In order for users to readily access safety and health rules, this study analyzed the frequency, distribution, and significance of terms included in the overall rules. First, the term distribution index was created based on the frequency and distribution of words extracted through text mining. The term distribution index derives from whether a word appears only in a specific chapter or across all rules. This allows users to effectively explore terms to be followed in a specific working environment and terms to be complied with in the overall working environment. Next, the related words of the previously derived terms were visualized through t-SNE and the Word2Vec algorithm. This can help prioritize the things that need to be managed first, focusing on key terms without checking the overall rules. Moreover, this study can help users explore safety and health rules by allowing them to understand the distribution of words and visualize related terms.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.29-34
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• 2014

The live line working is inherently dangerous as the workers have to work under the risk of electrical shock and most of works are carried out at height. The live line working need the some specific techniques and higher level safety measures such as a risk assessment to carry out works safely, but the electrical construction companies performed live-line working are usually small-sized companies. They have less capacity to have own safety management system. This study intended to conduct an in-depth analysis on the cause of electric shock accidents to provide basic data for policy proposing taking into considering the past eleven years for a long-term plan. And the aim of this study is to propose the policy about the equipment performance standards and/or worker's safety standards to revise the standards for preventing electric shock accidents, moreover, co-relation of the electrical work order form and on safety workings, especially electrical construction company/work.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.10-18
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• 2020

Background: The elevated risk of occupational infection such as tuberculosis among health workers in many countries raises the question of whether the quality of occupational health and safety (OHS) and infection prevention and control (IPC) can be improved by auditing. The objectives of this study were to measure (1) audited compliance of primary health-care facilities in South Africa with national standards for OHS and IPC, (2) change in compliance at reaudit three years after baseline, and (3) the inter-rater reliability of the audit. Methods: The study analyzed audits of 60 primary health-care facilities in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. Baseline external audits in the time period 2011-2012 were compared with follow-up internal audits in 2014-2015. Audits at 25 facilities that had both internal and external audits conducted in 2014/2015 were used to measure reliability. Results: At baseline, 25% of 60 facilities were "noncompliant" (audit score<50%), 48% "conditionally compliant" (score >50 < 80%), and only 27% "compliant" (score >80%). Overall, there was no significant improvement in compliance three years after baseline. Percentage agreement on specific items between internal and external audits ranged from 28% to 92% and kappa from -0.8 to 0.41 (poor to moderate). Conclusion: Low baseline compliance with OHS-IPC measures and lack of improvement over three years reflect the difficulties of quality improvement in these domains. Low inter-rater reliability of the audit instrument undermines the audit process. Evidence-based investment of effort is required if repeat auditing is to contribute to occupational risk reduction for health workers.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Building Construction Conference
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• 2022.04a
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• pp.216-217
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• 2022

After the financial crisis, the spread of indirect employment, which is an outsourcing method, is gradually becoming common in our society, and the risk of harm is relatively high or the proportion of simple jobs is high. Simple workers have a higher proportion of non-manufacturing industries such as the service industry, and production workers are intensively used in the manufacturing industry. In Article 63 of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, contractors must take necessary safety and health measures. In addition, due to the expansion of the scope of contracts under the Occupational Safety and Health Act, it is necessary to review the appropriateness of industrial accident prevention measures and implementation standards.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.23-31
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• 2023

Revising the Occupational Safety and Health Act led to enacting and revising related laws and systems, such as placing fire observers in hot workplaces. However, the operating standards in such cases are still ambiguous. Although fire accidents occur through multiple and multi-step factors, the hazards of fire accidents have been identified in this study as individual rather than interrelated factors. The aim has been to identify multiple factors of accidents, outlining fire and explosion accidents that recently occurred in the domestic manufacturing industry. First, major keywords were extracted through text mining. Then representative accident types were derived by combining the main keywords through the co-word network analysis to identify the hazards and their relationships. The representative fire accidents were identified as six types, and their major hazards were then addressed for improving safety measures using the identification of hazards in the "Risk Assessment" tool. It is found that various safety measures, such as professional fire observers' training and clear placement standards, are needed. This study will provide useful basic data for revising practical laws and guidelines for fire accident prevention, system supplementation, safety policy establishment, and future related research.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.18-34
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• 2018

Objectives: This study aims to identify and solve problems in the consistency, procedural justification, effectiveness, and other matters concerning approaches to occupational safety and health legislation, administrative rules, and administrative guidelines. Methods: In this study of policy on the industrial safety and health law of Korea, problems were raised based on important information on the approach to occupational safety and health legislation and administrative guidelines such as notices, ordinances, and instructions, as well as on their interpretation and operation standards. Secondly, based on the identified problems in the occupational safety and health law policy, core practical methods to present improvement directions for occupational safety health policy in Korea were sought. Results: It is absolutely necessary to actively promote the infrastructure for occupational safety and health by developing and disseminating notices, guidelines, and manuals that act as contact points between laws and the field in various ways at the administrative institution level. In addition to sanctions, efforts to systematically guide and promote complex professional matters must be supported. Efforts should be made to strengthen administrative expertise so that administrative authorities can secure professional authority and fully enforce legal policies according to the purpose of legislation. In order to ensure the effectiveness of occupational safety and health law policies, it is necessary to shift the focus of the legal policy toward confirming and guiding substantial compliance with legal standards. Conclusions: As a result of the above efforts, when reliable occupational safety and health law policy is implemented, the understanding and acceptance of the legal policy for the administrative object will be increased, and the safety and health management of the enterprise will be maximized to its full extent.

• Journal of Wellbeing Management and Applied Psychology
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.39-46
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• 2023

Purpose: The small-scale environmental impact assessment system in Korea was introduced and implemented in August 2000, but it has a problem that it cannot guarantee implementation due to the large proportion of qualitative reduction measures for each evaluation item. Therefore, when preparing a small-scale environmental impact assessment, research was conducted on how to improve the existing simple listing-type reduction measures and qualitative evaluation standards to quantitative reduction measures and evaluation standards reflecting regional characteristics. Research design, data and methodology: The small-scale environmental impact assessment system in Korea was introduced and implemented in August 2000, but it has a problem that it cannot guarantee implementation due to the large proportion of qualitative reduction measures for each evaluation item. Therefore, when preparing a small-scale environmental impact assessment, research was conducted on how to improve the existing simple listing-type reduction measures and qualitative evaluation standards to quantitative reduction measures and evaluation standards reflecting regional characteristics. Results: As a result of the analysis of qualitative and quantitative factors, the arithmetic sum of the qualitative factors of the total six projects is 160, accounting for 80% of the total number of reduction measures, and the quantitative factors are 40, accounting for 20%. Among them, the number of qualitative reduction measures reached 97.4% for animal and plant items, and more than 90% for air quality, noise and vibration, and eco-friendly resource circulation items. Conclusions: Therefore, it is necessary to avoid establishing qualitative reduction measures and set quantitative measures as the basis, but to specify the specifications, size, and installation location related to the reduction measures, and to calculate the numerical reduction efficiency.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.409-419
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• 2019

Although the rare earth elements (REEs) recycling industry is expected to increase worldwide in hightech industry, regulations for worker safety have yet to be established. This study was conducted to understand the potential hazard/risk of REE recycling and to support the establishment of regulations or standards. We review the extensive literature on the toxicology, occupational safety, and health issues, and epidemiological surveys related to the REEs, and propose suitable management measures. REE recycling has four key steps such as collection, dismantling, separation, and processing. In these processes, hazardous substances, such as REEs-containing dust, metals, and chemicals, were used or occurred, including the risk of ignition and explosion, and the workers can be easily exposed to them. In addition, skin irritation and toxicities for respiratory, nervous, and cardiovascular systems with the liver toxicity were reported; however, more supplementary data are needed, owing to incompleteness. Therefore, monitoring systems concerning health, environmental impacts, and safety need to be established, based on additional research studies. It is also necessary to develop innovative and environment-friendly recycling technologies, analytical methods, and biomarkers with government support. Through these efforts, the occupational safety and health status will be improved, along with the establishment of advanced REE recycling industry.

• Explosives and Blasting
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.1-11
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• 2024

The purpose of this study is to suggest amendments for the effective operation of safety and health regulations that stipulate safety standards for the prevention of industrial accidents in blasting and tunneling works. Because the regulations on Occupational Safety and Health Standards have not been revised for a long time, the regulations do not meet the requirements in site, and it is reported that it is difficult to implement the regulations at workplaces due to various deficiencies. Therefore, this study aims to abolish or improve unreasonable regulations that do not fit reality due to changes in the technology environment, or to modify low-operability regulations considering domestic conditions in blasting and tunneling workplaces. By comparing domestic laws and standards related to blasting and tunneling works with foreign ones, the improvement measures were suggested.