• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.19-24
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• 2021

The petroleum refinery industry handles a variety of complex chemical substances and employs a large number of people around the world. According to previous research, diseases caused by exposure to chemicals were quite common among workers in refineries until the 1980s. More recently, it is unusual for oil refinery workers to suffer from these serious diseases. The objective of this study was to identify the occurrence level of general diseases and any differences in lifestyle habits of workers in refineries in Korea compared with the general population. In this study, we used the results of health examinations from 2014 for workers at a large oil refinery in South Korea. In addition, based on the results of KNHANES from 2014 as representative of the population, hypertension, diabetes, anemia, hyperlipidemia, liver function abnormality, and kidney function abnormality were calculated using the standardized incidence rate. Hypertension showed a low result with an SIR of less than 1, but a high result in the case of abnormal liver function. The workers' occurrence rates of hypertension, hyperlipidemia, kidney dysfunction, and anemia were lower than those of ordinary salaried employees. however, their occurrence rate for abnormal liver function was markedly higher. In lifestyle habits, the smoking rate of workers was low while the alcohol consumption rate was quite high. This study has improved the understanding of the health status of workers in a large oil refinery in Korea, and has shown the impact of lifestyle habits related to the work environment on chronic diseases.

• Journal of Korean society of Dental Hygiene
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.839-848
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• 2012

Objectives : Oral care is important for workers and Korean adults to improve the quality of life and perform economic activities. This study was conducted to prepare the basic data to establish the management system for adult oral health by looking into characteristics by ages and the genders questingly. Methods : Oral health examination was conducted on workers in 2009 in the city of Gwangju and Chonnam province. This analysis was extracted using SPSS(SPSS 12.0 for windows, SPSS Inc, Chicago, USA). Results : Among the study respondents, 39.5% workers and 47.7% Korean adults answered their subjective oral health is not good, but there was no statistically significant difference between them(p< $0.001^{***}$). 39.9% workers and 2 0.6% Korean adults were smokers, and they showed a statistically significance in the ages and genders (p< $0.001^{***}$). 91.2 %workers and 49.8% Korean adults brushed their teeth before going to bed, and they showed a statistically significance in the ages and genders(p< $0.001^{***}$). In terms of the gender, male workers and Korean female adults showed high frequency of use, and both workers and Korean adults aged 18-24 showed high frequency with regard to the age. Regarding the use of oral care items, 36.0% workers and 16.9% Korean adults used them, and a statistical significance was shown in both the gender and age(p< $0.001^{***}$). In terms of the gender, female workers and Korean female adults showed high frequency of use and in terms of the age, 45-54 age bracket workers and 30-34age bracket Korean adults used the items frequently. 28.0% workers and 30.7% Korean adults answered that their mastication among oral functions is uncomfortable, and 8.8% workers and 6.5% Korean adults responded that it is hard to pronounce. They were statistically significant in the gender and age(p< $0.001^{***}$). Workers and Korean female adults expressed their mastication discomfort and men expressed that they have a difficulty in pronouncing. In terms of the age, the 54-64 age bracket workers and Korean adults express their inconvenience of mastication and pronunciation. Conclusions : According to the above findings, it needs to build the economical and efficient adult oral health care system in order to enhance both workers and Korean adults' oral health.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.535-540
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• 2011

Objective: The aim of this paper is to survey the gender differences Work-related musculoskeletal disorders among agriculture workers. Background: The number of occupational injuries has been decreasing trend in Korea, but it has been increasing in agriculture. The ratio of women worker shows steady increasing trend among the agricultural worker in Korea. Method: This study investigated through the questionnaire to 358 agricultural workers who are working for agriculture located in Gyeongnam, Gyeongbuk and Jeju. Results: The task types occurring frequently and the weight of a heavy object handled according to the sex were showed statistically significant difference. The estimation of WMSDs patients by sex appeared statistically very significant difference. Conclusion: The prevalence rate of WMSDs in female was about 21 percent higher than the prevalence rate of WMSDs in male. Application: The result of this study will help improvement of work environment and prevention of WMSDs in agricultural work.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.23 no.1 s.29
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• pp.33-42
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• 1990

This study was conducted to find out the relationship between the stress perception and health habits with 426 industrial workers using the GARS(Global assessment of recent stress) scale. The results were as follows : 1. The mean scores of stress perception were higher in female, more educated and divorced. There were no evident trends of mean scores of stress perception in age, monthly income and years worked. 2. The stress perception by health habits and sex showed significant difference in physical exercise and smoking variables. The higher health bit index, the lower degree of stress perception in male, but higher in female reversely. 3. The health habits and demographic variables were classified by five factors. Factors of sleeping hours, body mass index, and taste containing smoking and alcohol drinking had relatively high relation to stress perception. The explanation power of factors and variables was relatively low as 3.4%.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.23 no.1_2
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• pp.193-231
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• 2001

The purpose of this study is to clarify the real causes of gender wage differentials in Korea by analyzing changes over the period from 1984 to 1999. The participation rate of women in the Korean labor force has gradually increased since 1963, reaching 47.4 percent as of 1999. This increase can be attributed to more active participation by women of all ages, except those aged 15-19, as a result of their enrollment in higher level education. In particular, a remarkable rise in labor market participation was achieved by those aged 25-29. On the other hand, the ratio of female workers earnings to that of male workers has increased from 45.1 percent in 1972 to 63.1 percent in 1999. However, when the gender wage differentials are decomposed into various factors, it is found that discrimination components against female workers, compared to the skills or productivity characteristics, played a greater role for the 1994 to 1999 period.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.81-88
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• 2014

A number of screening tools have been developed to evaluate the human balance capability. Many of them were designed to identify the elderly with falling risk. Three different screening tools, which have been well used many clinical fields, were used in this study. The purpose of this study was to evaluate balance capability in facilities maintenance workers in korea. There were no statistical significance between male and female when evaluated with three different screening tools. However, significant differences were found among the age groups irrespective of gender when evaluated with three different screening tools. The results of three different screening tools in korea showed poor values compared with previous results. These results revealed that facilities maintenance workers faced more critical falling risk in korea.

• Proceedings of the ESK Conference
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• 1997.10a
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• pp.433-436
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• 1997

Automobile assembly tasks consist of many kinds of manual work which are very stressful to workers because of repetitive poor working postures and dealing heavy weights. To decrease the level of workload, it is necessary to evaluate the workload quantitatively. In this study, a workload evaluation method based on EMG was experimentally evaluated. We measured EMG at 6 main muscles with 2 healthy male workers during doing 9 assembly tasks, which were selected as high workload jobs. The tasks were decomposed into 36 elementary tasks. The workload was calculated through an equation with %MVIS and work duration time. To evaluate the result, subjective discomfort on the tasks was assessed by 29 workers. By the calculated workload, we were able to ranked the workload of tasks, elementary tasks. The comparison between the EMG-based workload and subjective rating showed a positive correlation(P-value=0.0246). We think it is possible to adapt the EMG-based workload evaluation technique to all assembly tasks by expending the experi- ment size.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.146-152
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• 1997

The number of accidents due to slipping, falling and awkward postures are estimated to account for over forty percent of annual industrial accidents in Korea. To prevent such accidents, stability-maintaining capabilities of workers should be understood before any other approach. This research was aimed to analyze capabilities of the workers with the help of yours male students maintaining standing postures on a tiltable stability platform. The experimental result showed that tilting direction, height of pivoting point, and permissible degree of swaying made significant effects on stability-maintaining duration. Besides, humans are more capable of maintaining their standing body postures on a platform tiltable fore and aft rather than or one tiltable sideways. The number of falling or tripping supported this phenomenon. A mechanical and physical discussion on the stability was added.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.31-34
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• 1983

For the study of the applicability of predictive equation of subjective symptoms of workers using organic solvents, 67 male workers using organic solvents were selected. The predictive equation was quotated from previous Cheon's study. All the datas of necessary variables were gained. The predictive values and observed values were compared. The results were summarized as below; 1. The difference between predictive values and observed values were characteristically large. The coefficient of determination between the two values was 0.0024. 2. The $R^2$ value of multiple stepwise regression equation derived from present study was 0.2827.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.37
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• pp.143-169
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• 1999

The problems of unemployment have been recognized as male problems even though the female unemployment problems are as significant as those of men since IMF. The women who have experienced insecure employment and lower wage than men in the labor market are having more serious economic difficulties after being unemployed. Especially economic problems of the unemployed female headed families are anticipated to be tremendous because the female heads do not have spouses who can act as a buffer seeking or beginning to work to reduce economic hardship. The purpose of this paper is to compare living conditions and utilization of the unemployment programs between male and female heads of the family who are unemployed and discouraged workers. It will examine the functionalism, human capital theory, and feminist perspectives on the cause of female unemployment in order to help understanding of their living situations after being unemployed. Then, it will compare the socio-demographic characteristics, their economic activities before being unemployed, their living conditions and changes in family life after being unemployed, their efforts to overcome unemployment and utilization of various government unemployment programs. It used the national data of National Unemployment Survey of Korean Institute of Health and Social Affairs conducted in 1998 and analyzed 283 female and 1,528 male family heads who are unemployed and discouraged workers. It reveals that the female family heads experienced lower economic status in the labor market before being unemployed, are having more serious economic hardship because of it, utilize more of the government programs such as public work and public assistance than the male family heads but less of the public loans for the unemployed. It recommends expansion of public work and public assistance, more vigorous advertisement of various unemployment programs, and active training of job creation technique for female family heads.