• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.20 no.12
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• pp.176-181
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• 2019

According to the 2017 Industrial Accident Analysis by Age, 71.8 % of construction disaster victims and 74.9 % of the deaths were workers aged 50 years or older, highlighting the seriousness of industrial accidents among aged construction workers. In this study, 303 construction workers aged 50 or older and 178 safety managers were surveyed on ways to improve the basic occupational safety and health education for senior workers in the construction industry. According to a comparison of the safety awareness for safety education by senior workers and safety managers, the safety manager showed a higher sense of safety for education than elderly workers. Regarding the remuneration education for those who had received basic occupational safety and health education in the construction industry, 69.9 percent said that regular remuneration education was needed, and 69.9 percent of them said that basic occupational safety and health repair education in the construction industry was needed every three years after the completion of education. This study is intended to present improvement plans for repair education for those who have completed basic occupational safety and health training in the construction industry.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.145-152
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• 2013

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of risk awareness on injury experience in quick delivery service workers. Risk awareness has complicate characteristics such as its level of worker and worker's decision about the level of other's risk perception. Data were collected by interview survey with structured questionnaire about injury experience, risk perception, work characteristics, and socio-demographic characteristics of quick delivery service workers by cross sectional survey design in 2012. The sample size was 120 respondent of quick delivery service workers. Statistical method for this study was hierarchical logistic regression method with 3 different models using socio-demographic characteristics and work characteristics and risk perception, etc. The difference between the level of risk perception of quick delivery service and other's was statistically significant effect on the experience of injury. Especially the higher the level of risk perception of quick delivery service workers is than other's, the lower the injury experience of quick delivery service worker is. The limitation of this study can be found in survey design. The future study for investigation of mechanism of the combined effect of risk perception of quick delivery service workers and others on injury experience.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.9-18
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• 2011

Daily workers in construction sites rarely receive the benefit of systematic safety and health training as they are required to move from one construction site to another in response to the start, completion, and repetition of construction works. Also, small- to medium-sized construction sites often lack the capacity to train their workers. Therefore, as in the advanced countries, basic OSH training sheme for construction workers should be conducted in the industrial-level, rather than in individual workplace-level, to make the training more effective. By doing so, only workers with the basic safety training will be able to engage in construction works. Consequently, accidents in the construction industry will decrease, as workers themselves who are at the forefront of the construction worksites are empowered to play the central role in accident prevention activities.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.148-157
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• 2011

Objectives: Although compensation for occupational injuries and diseases is guaranteed in almost all nations, countries vary greatly with respect to how they organize workers' compensation systems. In this paper, we focus on three aspects of workers' compensation insurance in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries - types of systems, employers' funding mechanisms, and coverage for injured workers - and their impacts on the actual frequencies of occupational injuries and diseases. Methods: We estimated a panel data fixed effect model with cross-country OECD and International Labor Organization data. We controlled for country fixed effects, relevant aggregate variables, and dummy variables representing the occupational accidents data source. Results: First, the use of a private insurance system is found to lower the occupational accidents. Second, the use of risk-based pricing for the payment of employer raises the occupational injuries and diseases. Finally, the wider the coverage of injured workers is, the less frequent the workplace accidents are. Conclusion: Private insurance system, fixed flat rate employers' funding mechanism, and higher coverage of compensation scheme are significantly and positively correlated with lower level of occupational accidents compared with the public insurance system, risk-based funding system, and lower coverage of compensation scheme.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.40-47
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• 1995

We analyzed sytrene concentrations in air and in blood, mandelic acid in urine, and chromosome aberrations in peripheral lymphocytes of twenty one styrene-exposed workers in two reinforced plastic factories. In addition, in vitro testing for chromosome aberration was carried out. The dose-dependent clastogenicity of styrene was confirmed in the cultured Chinese hamster lung cell(CHL) with metabolic activation. The environmental styrene concentrations and urinary mandelic acid levels of analyzed subjects were different in two plants examined, but the exposure levels in most workers examined were lower than the permissible exposure levels. Chromosome aberrations of the styrene exposed workers showed no increase in the percentage of aberrant cells as compared with the control group. No correlation was found between the exposure levels and the frequencies of chromosome aberrations in workers.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.188-195
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• 2019

Background: Mine workers in South Africa face challenges relating to poor health and safety, including fatigue risks, and poor socioeconomic and living conditions. Fatigue results in impaired mental and physical performance. The aim of this study was to assess contributors to fatigue of mine workers in South Africa. Methods: Data collection took place at four gold mines and one platinum mine in South Africa. A total of 21 focus groups were held with individuals in management, union representatives, and mine workers, and 564 questionnaires were completed by mine workers to gather information about fatigue and potential contributors to fatigue at these mines. Results: Qualitatively (through focus groups), fatigue was attributed to extended working hours, harsh working conditions, high workloads, production pressure, and resource constraints, along with aspects relating to demographic and socioeconomic factors, living conditions, lifestyle, health, and wellness. Greater fatigue was significantly associated with younger age, indebtedness, a lack of exercise, poor nutrition, less sleep, increased alcohol use, poor self-reported health, more sick leave, higher stress, and lower job satisfaction. Conclusion: The aim of the study was achieved; numerous work-, sociodemographic-, lifestyle-, and wellness-related factors were linked to fatigue in the participating mine workers. Contributors to fatigue should be addressed to improve health, safety, and sustainability in the industry.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.356-359
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• 2018

This case report attempts to present a case of acute toxic hepatitis in fire extinguisher manufacturing workers exposed to 2,2-dichloro-1,1,1-trifluoro-ethane (HCFC-123) in August 2017 in Korea. Twenty-two-year-old male workers were exposed to HCFC-123 for 1.5 hours one day and for 2.5 hours the other day, after which one worker died, and the other recovered after treatment. The workers were diagnosed with acute toxicity of hepatitis. However, exposure levels of HCFC-123 were not known with no work environment measurement done. Therefore, this study was conducted to estimate the exposure concentration of HCFC-123 via a job simulation experiment. In the simulation, the HCFC-123 exposure concentration was measured with the same working practice and working time as with the workers aforementioned. As a result, the workers who infused HCFC-123 into storage tanks were estimated to be exposed to HCFC-123 at a concentration of $20.65{\pm}10.81ppm$, and a mean concentration of area samples within a working radius were estimated as $70.30{\pm}18.10ppm$. Valve assembly workers working on valves of a fire extinguisher filled with HCFC-123 were exposed to HCFC-123 at concentrations of $91.65{\pm}4.03ppm$ and $115.55{\pm}7.28ppm$, respectively, in the simulation, and area samples simulated within the working radius were also found to be high with concentrations of $122.75{\pm}91.15ppm$ and $126.80{\pm}60.25ppm$, respectively. Nitrogen gas packing workers, who did not handle HCFC-123 directly, were exposed to the agent at a concentration of $71.80{\pm}8.49ppm$. These results suggest that exposure to HCFC-123 at high concentrations for 1.5-2.5 hours caused acute toxic hepatitis in two workers.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.125-126
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• 2020

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.111-118
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• 2008

In usual safety signs are final means to transmit hazard information so that the importance of them cannot be emphasized too much. Nevertheless, in Korea, few people are interested in functions of safety signs so that evaluation of safety signs are seldom committed. This research was conducted to evaluate and compare perceptional characteristics of safety signs, especially "Fall" signs, by Semantic Differential Method and Multi-dimensional Scaling Method, with undergraduate students as well as industrial workers. According to research results on several signs evaluated high through suggested procedure, action inducibility was different for students majoring in different sciences, but it had common elements in the sense of 'openness' or 'arrangements'. Besides, perceptional images on safety signs were mainly recognized with bases of 'arrangement' for student group and 'simplicity' for industrial workers, respectively, and their maps corresponded well with each other by partial rotating so that students and workers seemed to recognize safety signs with similar factors though their name might be different. However, since perceptional characteristics including image map, comprehensibility, and action inducibility were similar for student group whereas those were not for worker group, it was concluded that the test for action inducibility would be absolutely necessary for safety signs for workers' group.

• 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.