• Annals of Occupational and Environmental Medicine
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• v.34
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• pp.24.1-24.13
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• 2022

Background: In modern society, depression is serious issue that causes socioeconomic and family burden. To decrease the incidence of depression, risk factors should be identified and managed. Among many risk factors for depression, this study examined socioeconomic risk factors for depression. Methods: We utilized first (2006), second (2008), and third (2010)-wave data from the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging (KLoSA). Depressive symptom was measured with the 10-item Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale, Short Form (CES-D-10) in the survey in 2008 and 2010. Three risk factors including job security, employment type and monthly income were measured in the survey in 2006. The association between risk factors and depressive symptom was analyzed by Cox proportional-hazard model. Results: We analyzed data from 1,105 workers and hazard ratios (HRs) for 3 risk factors were significant entirely. In addition, regular worker with high income group is the most vulnerable group of poor job insecurity on depression among male workers (HR: 1.73; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.07-2.81). Finally, HRs for 7 groups who had at least 1 risk factor had higher HRs compared to groups who had no risk factors after stratifying 3 risk factors. In the analysis, significantly vulnerable groups were total 5 groups and the group who had highest HR was temporary/daily workers with poor job security (HR: 2.51; 95% CI: 1.36-4.64). The results concerning women, regardless of job type, were non-significant. Conclusions: This study presented one or more risk factors among poor job security, low income, temporary/daily employment type increase hazard for depressive symptom in 2 or 4 years after the exposure. These results inform policy to screen for and protect against the risk of depression in vulnerable groups.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2013

The fire safety of social welfare facilities increasing at high speed with coming-up of an aging society have been on the rise as a very important social problems. This research paper has analyzed the fire safety laws and standards about the social welfare facilities as a lesson elderly nursing home's fire that occurred in recent years. This research worker have conducted the questionnaire survey including research of the true actual through the fire protection engineers, the professors, the fire facilities managers and the users. This study has proposed the installing of suitable fire protection systems through the law revision, normal maintenance of the facilities, the safety management plan through evaluation about fire protective management and related facilities by the methods of the fire safety management.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.62 no.1
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• pp.71-81
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• 2020

Enclosed pig house are creating an environment with high concentrations of gas and dust. Poor conditions in pig farms reduce pig weight and increase disease and accidents for livestock workers. In the pig house, the high concentration of harmful gas may cause asphyxiation accidents to workers and chronic respiratory disease by long-term exposure. As pig farm workers have been aging and feminized, the damage to the health of the harsh environment is getting serious, and real-time monitoring is needed to prevent the damage. However, most of the measuring devices related to humidity, harmful gas, and fine dust except temperature sensors are exposed to high concentrations of gas and dust inside pig house and are difficult to withstand for a long time. The purpose of this study is to develop an wearable based device to monitor the hazardous environment exposed to workers working in pig farms. Based on the field monitoring and previous researches, the measurement range and basic specifications of the equipment were selected, and wearable based device was designed in terms of utilization, economic efficiency, size and communication performance. Selected H₂S and NH₃ sensors showed the average error of 5.3% comparing to standard gas concentrations. The measured data can be used to manage the working environment according to the worker's location and to obtain basic data for work safety warning.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.49-57
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• 2012

Proportion of falling from height accident at construction work accounts for more than 40%, and the number of injuries is getting increased. So without considering falling from height, we can say that it's hard to achieve our goal(accident prevention). Another critical point that we have to think about theses days is the fact that construction workers are getting older. To be specific, the number of workers who are above 50 years old accounts for 65.6% among the fatalities(2007~2011, KOSHA inspection). Accordingly, to effectively prevent construction accedents, especially falls from height, we need to focus on motion analysis of older construction workers and then make suitable measures for growing accident rates at construction work.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.194-199
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• 2001

The present situation of Korea already shone various symptoms of the aged society, and many kinds of data reported by the National Statistical Office demonstrate those facts. However, to my regret, sufficient efforts for aged workers are not taken in the area of industrial safety. In this research, work arrangement and industrial accidents of middle-aged and aged workers over last 5 years were analyzed. According to research results, proportion of industrial accidents involved middle-aged and aged workers was as high as 40%, and that of aged workers alone was so high as 25%. In addition, proportion of accidents were higher than that of worker population f3r aged wetters. Considering ages, it was demonstrated that as workers get older, mean number of accidents shows the tendency of going higher, and that as years go by, mean lost work-days are increasing regardless of age group. Main accident types were Fall followed by Slip, and Work-Related Disease, furthermore proportion of Slip was highest than any other types for aged workers. Based upon these results, it was emphasized thai careful attention should be paid to functional characteristics of aged workers, and that modification of accident prevention policy would be necessary.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.125-130
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• 2012

According to the Korea National Statistical Office data in 2010, the population over ages of 65 years would possess to 11.3% whole population of Korea in 2011 denoting Korea is already in the aging society. Old age is associated with inevitable time-dependent losses in physical capabilities. However the maintenance of physical capabilities is essential for continuing independence in old age. The work ability index(WAI) was constructed to reveal how well a worker is able to perform his work. This study focused on the discovery of an industrial and age-related influences on the work ability and job stress of workers in the shipbuilding, house managing, apartment construction industry. For this, the study conducted a job stress test using the Korean Occupational Stress Questionnaire Short Form, and employee performance evaluations using the Work Ability Index (WAI) of the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health (FIOH) on 3,228 workers in the shipbuilding, house managing and apartment construction industry. SPSS 12.0 K statistics program was used for statistics analysis and significance was verified with the Kruskal-Wallis test, a corporate body of nonparametric statistical analysis. As a result, employee performance had significant differences, depending on age, an industrial and years of service. The mean WAI score of the shipbuilding industry was lower than that of the other industry. Additionally, it was found that employee work ability decreased more as job stress increased.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.356-363
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• 2017

Background: The aim of this study was to investigate which physical and psychosocial work demands were associated with excellent work ability in individuals with neck pain, and to investigate age and sex differences in these associations. Methods: The study sample was obtained from the Statistics Sweden cross-sectional Work Environment survey and consisted of workers who reported neck pain after work (N = 3,212). Results: The findings showed an association between excellent work ability and self-reported low exposure to lifting, twisted work posture, working with hands in shoulder level or higher, and leaning forward without support and combination of exposures containing these work demands. Low exposure to seated work and high demands showed a reversed association. The associations were present mainly among older workers and were generally stronger for men than for women. Conclusion: This study indicates that a lower level of physically demanding work is an important element to maintain excellent work ability, especially for the older worker with neck pain.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.344-355
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• 2021

Purpose: With low birth rates and aging population problems in Korea, the number of foreign workers grows rapidly. The purpose of this study was to identify factors influencing physical activity of foreign workers based on a Health Promotion Model by examining relationships between acculturation, perceived benefits, perceived barriers, exercise self-efficacy, activity-related affect, social support, and physical activity. Methods: The participants were foreign workers aged 18 to 60 who were employed at eight shipyards. A questionnaire was distributed to 216 participants. Results: As a result of the multivariate ordinal logistic regression analysis, factors affecting physical activity of foreign workers were perceived benefits (B=.65, 95% CI=0.08~1.22), exercise self-efficacy (B=.16, 95% CI=0.05~0.26), integration (B=.41 95% CI=0.14~0.69), and social support for physical activity (B=.48, 95% CI=0.12~0.83). The total explanatory power was 17.7% (x²=41.95, p<.001). Conclusion: Based on these results, there is a need to develop a customized program to increase physical activities of foreign workers by enhancing integration, perceived benefits, exercise self-efficacy and social support.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2022.06a
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• pp.153-161
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• 2022

Among all industries, the construction industry still remains a traditional one with low productivity due to its labor-intensive and field-dependent production system, its supplier-oriented industrial structure, and the disruption of the information flow between participants. In addition, the construction industry in South Korea has recently been required to transform itself according to social trends such as aging, the reduction of skilled workers, and the shortening of working hours, and the disaster and death rates in the industry, which are more than twice as high as those in other industries, are making it more necessary to solve chronic safety problems. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to grasp the actual condition of safety management on construction sites in South Korea and analyze cases of K-smart technology utilization for preventing safety accidents on construction sites. The study investigated and analyzed the following. First, construction sites in South Korea were analyzed by type of safety accident, by type of construction, and by construction contract amount. Second, the current status of accidents on small-sized construction sites with a high fatal accident rate and cases of safety accidents on construction sites were investigated. The results of the study are expected to contribute to the dissemination and spread of smart safety technology for not only identifying major factors in safety accidents that occur on construction sites but also preventing workers from suffering accidents.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.123-138
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• 2018

In this paper, we use panel dataset from Korean linked worker-firm to analyse the effects of the workforce age structure on the productivity or labor costs. We measure 'labor productivity' as added value per capita, 'cost of labor' as labor cost per capita and estimate a dynamic panel model to study the effects of the workforce age structure on the productivity or labor costs. Empirical analysis results show that the workforce age structure is positively related to productivity and labor costs, but only up to the aged of 35-39. That is, we find that an increase in the proportion of younger workers or elder workers rather than the aged 35-39 has a negative effect on productivity and labor cost. In particular, the difference between the estimation coefficient of productivity and labor cost when the share of workers aged 50 or older is increased instead of the aged 35-39 is higher than the difference between the estimation coefficient of productivity and labor cost when the share of workers aged 30 or younger is increased instead of the aged 35-39. Our results exhibit that it is reasonable for firms to worry about declining productivity of elderly workers, whereas firms already used older workers efficiently, such as by adjusting their labor costs.