• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.47 no.3
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• pp.144-149
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• 2014

Objectives: Nicotine is a natural alkaloid and insecticide in tobacco leaves. Green tobacco sickness (GTS) is known as a disease of acute nicotine intoxication among tobacco farmers. Until now, GTS has been recognized globally as a disease that results from nicotine absorption through the skin. However, we assumed that GTS might also result from nicotine inhalation as well as absorption. We aimed to measure the airborne nicotine concentrations in various work environments of Korean tobacco farmers. Methods: We measured the nicotine concentrations in the tobacco fields, private curing barns, and joint curing barns of farmers from July to October 2010. All sampling and analyses of airborne nicotine were conducted according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health manual of analytic methods. Results: The airborne nicotine concentrations (geometric mean [geometric standard deviation]) in the tobacco field were $83.4mg/m^3$ (1.2) in the upper region and $93.3mg/m^3$(1.2) in the lower region. In addition, the nicotine concentration by personal sampling was $150.1mg/m^3$. Similarly, the nicotine concentrations in the private curing barn, workers in curing barns, the front yard of the curing barn, and in the joint curing barn were $323.7mg/m^3$(2.0), $121.0mg/m^3$(1.5), $73.7mg/m^3$(1.7), and $610.3mg/m^3$(1.0), respectively. Conclusions: The nicotine concentration in the workplaces of tobacco farmers was very high. Future studies should measure the environmental concentration of nicotine that is inhaled by tobacco farmers.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.281-290
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• 2013

This study aimed to assess whether the changes in compliance rates of evaluation criteria after healthcare accreditation among radiologic technologists working at four university hospitals which had acquired healthcare accreditation in Daejeon metropolitan area. In this study, the evaluation criteria of healthcare accreditation were reclassified and reevaluated to three areas which include patient safety, staff safety, and environmental safety. Each area has eight, three, and five questions, respectively. Each compliance rate was quantitatively measured on a scale of 0 to 10 before and after in this study. The result shows that the overall compliance rates were decreased on all areas compared to the time healthcare accreditation was obtained. The compliance rate of hand hygiene was drastically reduced. To maintain the compliance rates, not only individuals but healthcare organizations should simultaneously endeavor. In particular, healthcare organizations should make an effort to provide continuous education opportunity to their workers and supervise the compliance regularly.

• 한국노년학
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.985-998
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• 2011

This study was conducted to understand current management status of 'day and night care' facilities and to explore the related factors with rates of operation of them. The nationwide mailing survey was conducted with structured questionnaires from July, 14, 2010 to July, 28, 2010. The subjects were 277 facilities (response rate 24.5%). Regarding the types of operating, 79.1% of faculties was run by cooperation, and 17.8% and 3.6% for individuals and national/public institutes respectively. The average of operation rate was 70.15%. National/public institutes showed higher in the rate of operation(79.08%) than 72.49% of cooperations and 57.78% of individuals. The number of manpower was not nearly different by the types of operating bodies, but the number of nurse was significantly different among them. The national/public institutions had 1.07 nurses while individual institutions have only 0.08. We found that facilities run by national/public institutes and founded before 2008 years showed higher rate of operation. In case of providing regular monitoring and evaluation services, and music program for patients showed higher rate of operation. In addition, the number of managers, social workers, and nurses increase the rate of operation. We suggest that quality management and monitoring program for the facilities which run by individuals or established after 2008 years would be developed. We also call for development of programs for facilitating utilization of 'day and night care' facilities such as expanding the family support.

• Journal of Society of Preventive Korean Medicine
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.95-106
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• 2017

Objectives : Although interest in preventive medicine has increased recently, "Mibyeong", the preventive concept of Korean medicine, is still unfamiliar to the general public. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the concept of Mibyeong and users used on the Internet. Methods : Naver (www.naver.com), which has the highest ranking in terms of market share, number of visitors, search time share, and community category share, has been selected as a search target and jisik-iN Q&A and posts of cafe about Mibyeong were searched for recently approximately 6 years. Results : 105 cases of Jisik-iN Q&A and 283 cases of cafe posts were searched. Overall, the number of Jisik-iN Q&A and cafe posts's Mibyeong term usage was the highest in 2013. In the Internet user category, Mibyeong Term was used most commonly in the Jisik-iN Q&A by Korean medicine related medical personnel (29 cases, 28%) and in the cafe other health-related workers (87cases, 31%). In Mibyeong related cafe classification, Information Exchange (220 cases, 77%) was the most frequent and besides 39 cases (14%) used in Operation of Medical Institutions. And the concept of Mibyeong was often used as symptom-based rather than diagnostic test or disease (Cafe posts 52%, Jisik-iN Q&A 70%), in particular, topic of Mibyeong related Jisik-iN Q&A was used in the order of pain (31 cases, 16%), cancer (17 cases, 9%), fatigue (11 cases, 6%). Conclusions : This study has significance as basic research data of general Internet user group and can be used as fundamental data for awareness promotion, publicity and necessity of Mibyeong.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.205-213
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• 2002

Objective : Whether exposure to chronic noise induces an increase in blood pressure, or the development of hypertension, has not been established. A cohort study was performed to identify the effects of chronic noise exposure on blood pressure. Methods : 530 males working at a metal manufacturing factory in Busan, Korea were enrolled for the study. They were monitored for 9 consecutive years, from 1991 to 1999, with an annual health check-up. The subjects were divided into 4 groups, which were determines by noise level categories(NLC) according to noise intensity ; NLC-I: office workers, exposed to noise a level below 60dB(A) ; NLC-II: field technical supporters or supervisors, frequently exposed to workplace noise, wearing no hearing protection device; NLC-III: workers, exposed to workplace noise below 85dB(A), wearing ear plugs or muffs; NLC-IV: workers, exposed to workplace noise over 85 dB(A), wearing both ear plugs and muffs. Results : After controlling possible confoundens, such as baseline age, smoking, alcohol intake, exercise, family history of hypertension, systolic(SBP) of diastolic blood pressure(DBP) and changes in BMI (body mass index), the pooled mean for the systolic blood pressures, over the duration of the study period, were 3.8mmHg, 2.0mmHg and 1.7mmHg higher in NLC-IV, NLC-III NLC-II groups, respectively, than in the NLC-I group. There were no significant differences in the diastolic blood pressures between the groups. Conclusion : This study suggests that chronic noise exposure increases systolic blood pressure independently, among male workers.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.59-65
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• 2022

Background: Since people move through microenvironments rather than staying in one place, they may be exposed to both indoor and outdoor PM_2.5 concentrations. Objectives: The aim of this study was to assess the exposure level of each sub-population group and evaluate the contribution rate of the major microenvironments. Methods: Exposure scenarios for sub-population groups were constructed on the basis of a 2019 Time-Use survey and the previous literature. A total of five population groups were classified and researchers wearing MicroPEM simulated monitoring PM_2.5 exposure concentrations in real-time over three days. The exposure contribution for each microenvironment were evaluated by multiplying the inhalation rate and the PM_2.5 exposure concentration levels. Results: Mean PM_2.5 concentrations were 33.0 ㎍/m³ and 22.5 ㎍/m³ in Guro-gu and Wonju, respectively. When the exposure was calculated considering each inhalation rate and concentration, the home showed the highest exposure contribution rate for PM_2.5. As for preschool children, it was 90.8% in Guro-gu, 94.1% in Wonju. For students it was 65.3% and 67.3%. For housewives it was 98.2% and 95.8%, and 59.5% and 91.7% for office workers. Both regions had higher exposure to PM_2.5 among the elderly compared to other populations, and their PM_2.5 exposure contribution rates were 98.3% and 94.1% at home for Guro-gu and Wonju, respectively. Conclusions: The exposure contribution rate could be dependent on time spent in microenvironments. Notably, the contribution rate of exposure to PM_2.5 at home was the highest because most people spend the longest time at home. Therefore, microenvironments such as home with a higher contribution rate of exposure to PM_2.5 could be managed to upgrade public health.

• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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• v.4
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• pp.5-29
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• 1995

Occupational health services in Korea have been operated as dual types : one is operated by occupational health care manager and the other is health care agency without their own personnel. The performance of occupational health service should be different due to the variety of characteristics of health care manager and workplace, qualification of health care manager. This study is to analyze performance of occupational health care services with a particular consideration of job performance shape and efficiency, based on comparing those two types of health care management to show on the basic data for the settlement of more qualitative health care management system at workplace. For this study, total 391 places in Seoul and Inchon city area ; 154 places (39.4%) managed by designated health care manager and 237 places (60.6%) by the agency with their commission are selected as research samples. Tools for data collection are questionnares that have been investigated during the period of 20 September 1993-20 December 1993. Those data are compared with percentiles, mean, standard deviation and B/C ratio using SPSS PC program. Conclusions observed from the tests and each comparison could be summerized as follows : 1. Occupational health care have been accomplished at workplaces with designated people than with agencies people, and coverage rate of the occupational health care services has differences, due to management types. The reason of these results is due to visit only one or two times monthly by the agencies, while their own health care manager obsess, at the workplaces all the times. 2. Most of the expense for environmental control of all health care services expenditures shows that there is almost no fundamental improvement because more expenses are needed for procuring personal protective equipment and measuring work environment instead of environmental improvement. 3. It is investigated how much the cost of occupational health care services needs per worker, and calculated how much the cost needs per service hour per worker. The results from this show that the cost of occupational health services at workplaces with their own managers used less than the cost of health care agencies, eventually the former gives better services with less cost than the latter. 4. Benefit/Cost ratio is also produced by total benefit/total cost. The result from the above way reads 4.57 as a whole, while their own manager having workplaces reads 4.82 and the agencies do l.56. Even if their own manager performing workplaces spent more cost, this system produces more benefit than the agencies management. 5. The B/C ratio for medical organization such as local clinic, health care center and pharmacy shows more than or equal to at the workplaces controlled by the agencies. It is inferred that benefit would be much less than the cost used, with so being inefficient. 6. It is assumed that the efficiency ratio of health education is equal to reduction rate of workers medical organization visit. Estimated reduction rate 5%, 10%, 15%, show that the efficiency ratio of health education have an effect on producing benefits. It is estimated that more benefit can be produced if more qualitative education will be provided for enhancing health care efficiency. 7. Results of this study cannot be generalized because there are large scale of deviation in case of workplaces with less than 300 full time workers, but B/C ratio reads 2.69 as a whole and 3.25 at workplaces with their own health care manager are higher than 1.63 at the workplaces manged by the agencies. Finally, all the benefit concerning health care services could not be quantified, measured and shown on the value of money. This is a reason that a considerable part of benefits are so underestimated. This is also thought that measurement tools should be developed for measuring benefits of health care services with a comprehensive quantification. in the future. It is also expected that efficiency of occupational health care services should be investigated using cost-effectiveness analysis.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.35-45
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• 2008

This study was performed to compare the kinematics among three different safety shoes(type 1: ergonomically designed and high quality shoes, 2: curved and cushioned safety shoes, and 3: regular safety shoes) and to find the effect of insole during walking. Ten healthy subjects were recruited for this study. The range of motion of knee and ankle joint, angle of rear foot and angle of heel contact were measured using a three dimensional motion analysis system. In the second peak, the angle of heel contact showed statistically significant difference between safety shoes and insole, however, there was no statistical significance among three different safety shoes. The angle of ankle increased significantly at initial contact, first peak, the second peak and the toe off phase compared with type 1 and 2 safety shoes, and the angle of ankle showed statistically significant difference between with and without applying the insole. During the first peak, the second peak and the toe off phase, the angle of knee was statistical significance between safety shoes and insole. In heel contact, the angles of Achilles' tendon showed statistically significant difference between safety shoes and insole. The rear foot angles showed statistically significant difference between safety shoes and insole during heel contact and early heel contact. These results suggest that the type 1 safety shoes were superior to others in the statistics, and applying insole could be a possible method to prevent fatigue of lower extremity and musculoskeletal disorders. Further studies are needed to find the effect of ergonomically designed safety shoes and insole on practical value in prevention of musculoskeletal disorder, fatigue and satisfaction of workers.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.236-250
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• 2019

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of intensive rehabilitation programs on pain, range of motion (ROM), lumbar muscle strength, core muscle endurance, disability, and depression in patients with traumatic low back injuries and to compare the efficacy of this therapy with that of conventional rehabilitation therapy. Methods: The study was performed with a retrospective medical chart review of patients with traumatic low back injury referred to the rehabilitation center at the Daegu Hospital of the Korean Workers Compensation and Welfare Service. Forty-four patients were allocated to either the conventional rehabilitation group (CRG; n = 22) or the intensive rehabilitation group (IRG; n = 22). The CRG group patients, who received 30-min therapist-supervised physical therapy and modality therapy five times per week for four weeks, were compared with the IRG group patients, who received 60-min therapist-supervised physical therapy, 30-min therapist-patient 1:1 matching rehabilitation therapy, and modality therapy five times per week for four weeks. Outcome measures were a numerical rating scale, ROM, lumbar muscle strength, lumbar core muscle endurance, thickness of lumbar deep focal core muscle (transverse abdominis and lumbar multifidus), Oswestry disability index (ODI), and depression (Korean version patient health questionnaire-9). Results: There were statistically significant improvements after treatment in all outcome measures in both groups (p < 0.05). In the intergroup comparison, NRS scores on the activity and thickness of lumbar deep focal core muscles increased significantly more in the IRG than in the CRG (p < 0.05). There were no statistically significant intergroup differences in NRS scores on resting, ROM except left lateral bending, lumbar muscle strength, core muscle endurance, ODI, and depression. Conclusions: We could confirm the superior effectiveness of an intensive rehabilitation program compared to conventional rehabilitation therapy in patients with traumatic low back injuries.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.24 no.4 s.82
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• pp.127-139
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• 2006

The purpose of this research was to find out relation between the attitudes toward work and leisure in later life and intention to move to senior community available to work among 50's in Seoul, Incheon, and Kyunggido. The same research questions would be revealed as the previous one done by Cho & Cho(2006). The data were the part of the survey collected from 556 respondents with questionnaire during November, 2002 by the Hong's research team(2004). The results of this study showed that most respondents were somewhat actively preparing toward work in later life and the level of preparation differed by the individual characteristics such as age, health and occupation. They preferred various work items specially managing facility center, raising animals and plants, and managing educating center, which were different from what current elderly workers were mainly involved in. Similarly to the work, most respondents cared for the kind of leisure activities to continue and saved money for the leisure expenses in later life. The better the economic conditions, the more actively prepared for leisure in later life. They were strongly expected to participate in public leisure facilities and programs for the elderly as a user, volunteer, and/or activist. Over two thirds of the respondents preferred to work and live together in later life and over two out of five had intention to move to the senior community available to work. The more active in work and/or leisure in later life, the higher intention to work together and/or to move to the community. Those results generally supported the previous research showed that the needs of work and leisure in later life would be increased and varied, therefor housing for the elderly should considered work space and program as well as leisure. The further study was suggested to focus on the potential and current residents in the sample case of the comprehensive welfare town for the elderly by local administration.