• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.342-347
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• 2011

Healthy worker effect (HWE) refers to the consistent tendency for actively employed individuals to have a more favorable mortality experience than the population at large. Although HWE has been well known since the 1970s, only a few studies in occupational epidemiology have attempted to fully define and evaluate HWE. HWE can be separated into effects on the initial hiring into the workforce (healthy worker hire effect) and those on continuing employment (healthy worker survival effect). In this review, we summarize the methods for minimizingor adjusting for the healthy worker effect available in occupational epidemiology. It is noteworthy that healthy worker survival effect appears complicated, considering that employment status plays simultaneous roles as a counfounding variable and intermediate variable, whereas healthy worker hire effect may be adjusted by incorporating health status at baseline into the statistical model. In addition, two retrospective cohort studies for workers in the semiconductor industry and Vietnam veterans in Korea, respectively, were introduced, and their results were explained in terms of healthy worker effect.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.13-23
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• 1979

A study was carried out from October 1977 to September 1978 in order to develope health care delively system which will meet to rural area in Korea. For the study objective a model of health care delivery system of Myun (township) area was developed which is adopted the net-work of village health voluntary worker who will play the role of bridge for communication related with health and illness between families or village people and health subcenter, and :he model health care delivery system net-work was set in the area of Soodong Myun, Yangju Gun. which is the rural health demonstration area of Ewha Womans University since 1972. The activities and attitude of 22 village health voluntary workers were observed and analized. during the study period. The results are as follows; 1. For the field activities of village health voluntary workers. a guide line which is described with specific behavioral objectives was developed and used for not only training of the workers but also evaluation of their field activities. 2. During the study period, the number of 971 village people were served primary health care service by village health voluntary worker and the service was classified largely into symptomatic medications (92%) and preventive measures (8%). 3. Comparative percentage of the number of 894 symptomatic cases cared by village health voluntary workers to 5,695 cases of patient treated by Soodong Health Subcenter during the same period was 15.7%. 4. Annual utility rate of village health voluntary worker by Myun total people was 16.1% but utility rate by Rie was varied from 38.2% to 2.8% which shown there were considerable differences in each Rie. In order to settle the village health care service, the obstructive factors of utility should be detected and their counter measure must be taken. 5. As the health need of village people increases, it is expected that the supplement of drug excluding present sit basic drugs is inevitable, but considering the ability of village health voluntary worker, the selection of additional drugs and education, plan should be carefully studied. 6. It is desirable that a financial resource for supplementary purchase of first aid kit, drugs and materials whould be alloted from village public fund like Saemaeul Women's Club fund, which has already practiced in a few villages in the study area. 7. As pointed out by village health voluntary workers, in order to improve the village health, village leaders should be in the center of it and the cooperation of whole village people is a core of healthful village development, and it is reasonable that the health subcenter backs up these voluntary health activities by village people in techniques. 8. It seems effective that a supplementary education for village health voluntary worker be accomplished by a planned education through regular meetings like worker's monthly meeting and irregular post guide when Myun Health Workers can handle the problems found during the round trip of villages. 9. It is desirable that village health voluntary workers, who are recommended by a civil voluntary organization like Saemael Woman's Club, are charged by natural villagc unit, are given a function of village health care service and used through basic education at health subcenter. 10. It is advisable that the village health voluntary worker's service is compensated not by a form of money, but by other way such as an exemption of medical fee of worker herself or her families in health subcenter can be one method. 11. Daily health activities of each village health voluntary worker should be reported to health subcenter by biweekly or monthly in order to get not only for basic data of the program but also for evaluation the program. It is recomandable that the report form should be simple and clear enough for village health voluntary worker to fill it effectively. 12. Village health care service should be developed into a Saemaeul Movement in which village people actively participate. For this, the appointed function of village health voluntary worker should be absorbed into those of living Environment Betterment Section or Family Planning Section of Saemaeul Women's Club or it is desirable that establish a new section, Village Health Promoting Section and make it involve the appointed functions of those sections mentioned above.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.71-80
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• 2014

The occupational injury and illness(OII) was influenced by the various factors. This study was planned to investigate the pathway of the activities of OSHM on the rate of OII via worker's participation. The survey on the trend of the activities of OSHM was used. The sample size of manufacturing industry was 3,000 enterprises and that of construction was 1,000 enterprises. The survey was done by interview method with structure questionnaire. Questions about the activities of OHSM were integrated into one category using factor analysis. The enterprises with OII has more activities of OSHM than that without OII. Among enterprises with OII, the level of the activities of OSHM was positively correlated with the rate of OII. The activities of OSHM has influenced on the rate of OII directly and indirectly via worker's participation and the activities of prevention of accident. Worker's participation also has the direct effect and indirect effect on the rate of OII. Worker's participation in construction sector has more effect on OII than that in manufacturing sector.

• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.166-179
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• 2008

Purpose: This study was conducted to understand the situation of general hospital worker's health management and health promotion. Methods: To investigate the current situation of health management in the hospital, structured questionnaires were sent to 122 occupational health providers by post. About 79% hospitals returned questionnaires. The data were analyzed using descriptive analysis, ${\chi}^2$-test by SPSS 12.0 program. Results: A quarter hospitals responded set up separated health care office for workers, 87.5% provided health educations, and 56.5% operated health promotion projects. In the contents of health promotion program embraced both health behavior practice and disease prevention, musculoskeletal disease control, infection control, smoking cessation, and exercise program were most commonly provided to the workers in order. Occupational health care provider chose the item such as budget limitation, manager's apathy, lack of employee's participation, cooperation provider, and so on as the reason of difficulty to run health promotion program in the hospital setting. Conclusion: Hospital managers need to construct infra to manage and promote worker's health. For example, establishing Industrial safety and health committee in hospital and arranging nurses who being fully responsible to worker's health. And occupational health care provider should advertise health promotion projects both managers and workers actively.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.85-93
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• 1984

In order to develop some indicies for the evaluation of village health worker's activities and to find out personal characteristics and other factors that affect the activities, an interview survey was conducted to thirty seven village health workers (VHW) in Sunwon, Naega and Bulun townships in Kangwha county, where the Community Health Project of Yonsei University, College of Medicine, has been implemented for the past ten years. In addition, daily activity records of the VHW's were also analyzed. The results are summarized below: First, meeting attendance rates, number of regular family visits, number of antenatal care visits and number of family planning visits were identified as the most meaningful criterion for the evaluation of the village health worker's activities. Second, personal factors that significantly affect the village health worker's activities were identified as age, educational background, living with in-laws, religion, presence of preschool child in the family, holding leader's position of village woman's association concurrently, and duration serving as a VHW. The more aged and the more educated VHWs were the more effective. Those VHWs who were living with in-laws, without preschool child in the family, holding the leader's position of the village woman's association, and the longer service duration were the more effective. Other factors that affect the VHW's activities were the number of households in the target village and the number of natural villages in the target villages. It showed that the smaller the size of number of households and natural villages, the higher the degrees of the effectiveness of the VHW.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.66-73
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• 2020

The change in labor consciousness began to draw social attention to work-life balance (WLB). The WLB is one of the major factors affecting the health and safety problems of workers. Although shiftwork adversely affects WLB, safety, and health problems of workers, WLB of shift workers has received little empirical attention. The purpose of this study was to examine whether WLB mediates the relationship between shiftwork and shift worker's safety and health problems, participation in leisure activities moderates WLB, and finally, whether WLB moderated by participation in leisure activities mediates the relationship between shift work and shift worker's safety and health problems. For the study, the data of the 5^th wave of Korean Working Condition Survey(KWCS) conducted by Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency(KOSHA) of South Korea was used. Conditional process analysis revealed that the relationship between shift work and worker's safety and health problems is mediated by WLB; however, participation in leisure activity showed no moderation effect on WLB. Therefore, the moderated mediation effect has failed to achieve statistical significance. The results indicate that working environment improvement in consideration of the WLB is needed to gain shift worker's long-term safety and health. The implications of this study and suggestions for future research were discussed.

• The Korean Journal of Health Service Management
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.183-196
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• 2015

Objectives : The purpose of this study was to analyze the factors affecting the level of subjective health recovery among injured workers. The aim in this study was to find an efficient worker's compensation service for subjective health recovery among injured workers. Methods : From the 1st panel study of worker's compensation insurance, data for 2,000 injured workers was analyzed with SPSS 22.0 and AMOS 22.0. Results : There was a statistically significant difference in the level of self-perceived health recovery depending on socio-demographic characteristics, disability characteristics and medical care services. Factors such as gender, education level, socio-economic level, disability level, claim duration, and treatment duration appropriacy affected the level of self-perceived health recovery. Conclusions : Worker's compensation services should take into consideration the factors that affect the health recovery of injured workers.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.30 no.2 s.57
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• pp.392-401
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• 1997

Generally working environment and worker's health status of small scale industries (SSI) which employ less than 50 workers are known to be poorer than those of large scale industries(LSI) which employ more than 500 workers. However, according to the analysis of occupational injuries in Korea, prevalence rate of occupational injuries of SSI was 3.1 times as high as LSI. But there was no difference in prevalence rate of occupational disease and werkers with suspected occupational disease(D1) between SSI and LSI. To confirm these two different facts, we surveyed working environment and worker's health status of SSI and LSI in Kyeungin industrial complex. Workers in SSI were 10,878 and workers in LSI were 8,291 and number of hazardous agents in SSI were 3,554 and those of LSI were 1,916. We found following results. First, proportion of male workers and workers who were less than 30 yens old and more than 50 yens old was higher in SSI compared to LSI. Second, worker in SSI had more liver disease, viral hepatitis, and pneumoconiosis than in LSI, and there were more worker with suspected occupational disease, general disease, and worker needed close observation in SSI. But these effects had not statistical significance under the condition controlled by age and sex with logistic regression. Third, the numbers measured for specific chemicals, organic solvents, and heavy metals in SSI was more than in LSI. However there was on difference in the excess rate of each hazardous agent between SSI and LSI. As the above results workers' health status in SSI was poorer than in LSI, but these results were mainly due to the population structure difference. Although there were some limitation of this study and problems of sensitivity and validity for periodic health examination and working environment evaluation method, the concept that working environment and worker's health status in SSI should be reviewed. In future the study that will reveal the real weak point of SSI should be performed.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.53-63
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• 2012

The purpose of this study is to grasp foreign worker's industrial safety and health state, which find out the improvement to secure the basic safety net for foreign workers. We have investigated 2,050 workers through direct interviews during the period from April 12, 2010 to May 31, 2010. And the result of analysis, foreign worker's daily average working time is 10.6 hours(40.8% workers in total work 10~12 hours), the extent of exposure to harmful and dangerous working environment is 'the position which cause pain in neck, waist, hands, shoulders, legs'(69.3%), 'repetitive hands and arms movement'(66.1%). It showed 'experience of accident damage or disease related work'(27.3%), 'never apply for industrial accident compensation' is revealed high at 73%. As a result of completing a safety health education for a year, it showed 'never educated'(40.2%), 'the institute that foreign workers have used for help and advice is the foreign worker's support center'(61.9%) Thus, hiring foreign workers in the company are small in site, the environment is too harmful and dangerous. In addition, no safety and health managers, legally blind spot located in the health and safety, because it is an urgent meet for these measures to improve.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.361-366
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• 2020

Background: This study aimed to identify the validity of breast cancer symptom questionnaire of worker's special health examination and its relationship with breast ultrasonography findings in young female night workers. Methods: The breast cancer symptom questionnaire data of worker's special health examination and breast ultrasonography results in young female shift workers who worked in one electronic manufacture company were collected from 2014 to 2018. Results: Of the 857 workers, 18 had a Breast Imaging Reporting and Database System category 4 or higher. Among other variables, shift work tenure alone was associated with the risk of having a Breast Imaging Reporting and Database System category higher than 4. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value of the symptom questionnaire were 16.7%, 87.7%, 2.8%, and 98.0%, respectively. Conclusion: The current breast cancer symptom questionnaire of the worker's special health examination is inappropriate due to its low sensitivity and positive predictive value. In the future, female night workers will need alternative measures for more accurate screening for breast cancer.