• Environmental Analysis Health and Toxicology
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• v.31
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• pp.15.1-15.6
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• 2016

A number of absurdities surrounding the humidifier disinfectant (HD) incident may have occurred because 1) a judicial system operates on the underlying false assumption that the involved parties are equals in knowledge, information and resource mobilization capabilities, regardless of respective real status as company or individual; 2) there is a lack of a system that mandates a company to prevent and actively manage possible catastrophes; 3) the regulatory scheme makes companies believe that as long as they are complying with the existing regulations, they have satisfied all of their responsibilities. I believe that this issue is an opportunity to bring about changes in the judicial redress system, the system of internal management of manufacturers, and the regulatory system of the government. The following regulation amendments are needed to move towards the changes stated above. First, legislation relating to victim relief that is applicable to the HD incident must be established. Second, a risk management system must be formed within the manufacturing company and to this end an institutional environment for the system must be established within regulatory framework. Furthermore, legislation must be passed that could punish companies themselves that have caused severe damage to individuals because they had failed to take necessary actions to avoid foreseeable harm. Finally, the framework of regulation must be changed so that the company, who has the necessary information regarding the product and the component chemicals used in the product, must self-directed experiment and assessment of the safety of their own products.

• Annals of Occupational and Environmental Medicine
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• v.35
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• pp.10.1-10.10
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• 2023

The purpose of this paper was to review the problems relating to Korea's occupational health services and suggest ways to improve them. Korea can be classified as a welfare state type of conservative corporatism partially interwoven with liberalism. While experiencing compressed economic growth, the economic sectors of developed (excess areas) and developing (deficient areas) countries are interwoven. Therefore, it is necessary to perfect conservative corporatism along with a complementary reinforcement of liberal contents and to apply a multilayered approach focusing on complementing the deficient areas. It is essential to form a national representative indicator related to occupational health, and a strategy for selection and concentration is needed. The proposed central indicator is the occupational health coverage rate (OHCR), which is the number of workers who have applied for mandatory occupational health services under the Occupational Safety and Health Act in the numerator with the total working population in the denominator. This paper proposes ways to raise the OHCR, which is currently at the level of 25%-40%, to 70%-80%, which is the level of Japan, Germany, and France. To achieve this target, it is necessary to focus on small businesses and vulnerable workers. This is an area of market failure and requires the active input of community-oriented public resources. For access to larger workplaces, the marketability of services should be strengthened and personal intervention using digital health resources should be actively attempted. Taking a national perspective, work environment improvement committees with tripartite (labor, management, and government) participation for improvement of the working environment need to be established at the center and in the regions. Through this, prevention funds linked to industrial accident compensation and prevention could be used efficiently. A national chemical substance management system must be established to monitor the health of workers and the general public.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.24 no.3 s.35
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• pp.339-355
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• 1991

The concept of workers' participation in occupational health was introduced to Korea recently in relation to primary health care in occupational health. But there is confusion and debate about workers' participation concept. The purpose of this study was to review the concepts of workers' participation and to conduct evaluation the workers' participation status in occupational health and safety, 394 workers and 54 employers (5.6%) in north area of Kyunggi-Do, were selected and interviewed with a questionnaire by a trained interviewer from August to September 1990. In general, the concept of workers' participation is based on industrial domocratisation and Declaration of Human Rights which had been powerful ideologies in labor movement. Contrary to workers' participation, community participation is rooted in the Health Rights. So, it is necessary to consider concept of workers' participation to improve participation. The results of survey were as follows. 1. Most of companies (71.75) carried out occupational health education to workers in study area. 2. The Occupational Safety and Health Committee (OSHC) were set up in 24.1% among the study companies, and 72.7% of workers among respondents thought that OSHC was helpful to workers health. 3. The workers signed his name to personal health report in 43.1% and the rate of participation in occupational environment examination was 54.9%. 4. The workers prefer the OSHC (39.3%), owner (35.1%) and union (25.8%) as a occupation health organisation, but owners prefer OSHC (54.5%), manager (43.2%) and union (2.3%). 5. Among the factors of the general characteristics, the existence of labor union was a major determinant of workers' attitude and level of workers' participation. As we have seen, most levels of workers' participation are low in occupational health. The variable of existence of labor union among the factors was a ma determinant of workers attitude and level of workers' participation. Therefore, in order to promote workers health, it is necessary to ponder long deeply on occupational health care system under the viewpoint of workers' participation.

• Journal of Advanced Technology Convergence
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.01-09
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• 2022

Recently, safety issues in companies and public institutions are no longer a task that can be postponed, and when a major safety accident occurs, not only direct financial loss, but also indirect loss of social trust in the company and public institution is greatly increased. In particular, in the case of a fatal accident, the damage is even more serious. Accordingly, as companies and public institutions expand their investments in industrial safety education and prevention, open AI learning model creation technology that enables safety management services without being affected by user behavior in industrial sites where high-risk situations exist, edge terminals System development using inter-AI collaboration technology, cloud-edge terminal linkage technology, multi-modal risk situation determination technology, and AI model learning support technology is underway. In particular, with the development and spread of artificial intelligence technology, research to apply the technology to safety issues is becoming active. Therefore, in this paper, an open cloud platform design method that can support AI model learning for high-risk site safety management is presented.

• Proceedings of the Safety Management and Science Conference
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• 2013.11a
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• pp.393-400
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• 2013

Globally, smart phones have been rapidly distributed, which has led to changes in people's life cycle. Most people who are under 60 are supposed to use smart phones. Additionally, as the ratio of people who are interested in physical exercise is increasing, some applications for smart phones can manage dividual's exercise with the web servers. However, most of them can only check how much individual works out and cannot compare other's body type and life environment. Moreover, users cannot share their own data with others. This paper proposed the system which can resolve those kinds of problems through data mining techniques. The suggested model will have ability to figure out the relation between body type and the amount of exercise, find out if his work is proper from the result of classification and can pick out the features which is common to people who have similar body type and the amount of workout by applying data mining techiques. This model also will be able to recommend the proper amount of workout to each individual in order that they keep good health state efficiently.

• The Journal of Korean Society for School & Community Health Education
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.65-73
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• 2021

Objectives: In Japan, there are many disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis, and because of the high temperature and humid climate, health education for food poisoning may be particularly important. In addition, sexual problems caused by precociousness of adolescents, smoking and drinking are already serious socially important problems, and addiction problems are also emerging. Methods: Various publications from Japanese governments, interest groups such as government officers, health center workers, and people from health educators. For the information of Korean health education conditions, a current health educator and people from middle and high schools. Results: In 2012, based on the "Investigation Report on the Mind Care of Children in Emergency Disasters" from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, the Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) situation of children in East Japan affected areas was discovered, and health education became important. In 2014, the "School Health and Safety Act Enforcement Rule" was amended, and health checkups are emphasized as part of school health. Conclusions: School health education in Japan differs from other health care systems in many ways with the system of Korea in the context of non-existence of official health education curriculum. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to develope how the curriculum of school health education in Korea.

• Quality Improvement in Health Care
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.75-90
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• 2016

Objectives: This study measures the level of cognition of employee's patient safety culture and evaluates the current level through comparing the results to external levels. Ultimately it is performed to construct a strategic improvement plan through the basic database for patient's safety culture. Methods: A questionnaire survey of self reporting type was carried out using structured questionnaire of the patient's safety culture for employees currently employed in a hospital. Total responders was 1,129 and a response rate was 54.6%. The survey results were calculated with a percent positive response, and the current level was evaluated by comparing with the survey results of a hospital (2009 and 2014) and the survey result of The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality(2014). Results: Sub-dimension of high percent positive response for each area were 'teamwork within hospital units' (80%), 'feedback & communication about error' (73%) and 'supervisor/manager expectations & actions promoting safety' (67%). Meanwhile, 'teamwork across hospital units' (31%), 'hospital management support for patient safety' (29%), 'staffing' (27%) and 'non-punitive response to error' (17%) were relatively low percent positive response. Compared to the survey results of AHRQ (2014) for each area, 'teamwork within hospital units' (80%), 'feedback & communication about error' (73%), 'frequency of event reporting' (66%) were at the top 50% percentile level and the remaining sub-dimensions showed a very low level in the lower 10% percentile area. Conclusion: In order to establish a system for patient safety culture within the hospital and evaluate the effect on this, it is necessary to periodically evaluate the patient's safety culture and establish regulations on hospital safety culture to comply with this.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.10-20
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• 2024

In recent automated manufacturing systems, compressed air-based pneumatic cylinders have been widely used for basic perpetration including picking up and moving a target object. They are relatively categorized as small machines, but many linear or rotary cylinders play an important role in discrete manufacturing systems. Therefore, sudden operation stop or interruption due to a fault occurrence in pneumatic cylinders leads to a decrease in repair costs and production and even threatens the safety of workers. In this regard, this study proposed a fault detection technique by developing a time-variant deep learning model from multivariate sensor data analysis for estimating a current health state as four levels. In addition, it aims to establish a real-time fault detection system that allows workers to immediately identify and manage the cylinder's status in either an actual shop floor or a remote management situation. To validate and verify the performance of the proposed system, we collected multivariate sensor signals from a rotary cylinder and it was successful in detecting the health state of the pneumatic cylinder with four severity levels. Furthermore, the optimal sensor location and signal type were analyzed through statistical inferences.

• Journal of the Society of Disaster Information
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.656-664
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• 2023

Purpose: The Ministry of Employment and Labor manages disasters based on the standard manual for risk management of large-scale human accidents in workplaces when large-scale disasters such as fires and collapses occur in workplaces. We are going to check the standard manual currently in operation and suggest improvement plans for the insufficient items. Method: Accordingly, the standard manual was checked together with internal and external experts in the disaster management manual and disaster management staff at headquarters and local government offices, and items to be improved were identified with priority. Result: In case of a collapse accident, it is necessary for the Ministry of Public Administration and Security to accurately present the selection criteria in order to eliminate the controversy over the selection of the disaster management department. In addition, it seems necessary to supplement the details of the disaster safety communication network operation and evacuation guidelines. Conclusion: In the future, in order to improve the disaster management system that meets the public's eye level, it is expected to prepare a standard manual for risk management of large-scale human accidents in workplaces that guarantees the lives and safety of workers through the collection of opinions from experts in the relevant field, disaster management personnel, and the general public.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.298-309
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• 2019

Objectives: This study aimed to investigate stages of safety and health culture change through a reflection on 40 years of hearing conservation history at a multinational company. Methods: The target workplaces were multinational companies with more than 1,000 employees. The research used the clinical case study and system analysis methods based on direct observation of the research from 1994 to 2009. The latter method performed an analysis of the equilibrium state of the cross-section in the given period and the longitudinal profile of the change during the given period. Results: The stages of cultural change are divided into five stages and summarized as follows. In the first stage, workplace noise was not widely recognized as a hazard, while in the second stage, the measurement of noise levels and audiometric testing were conducted under the Korean Occupational Safety and Health Act (KOSHA). The driving force for change in the second stage was the amendment of the KOSHA. In the third stage, noise came to be recognized as a hazard factor through awareness training. The driving force of change during the third stage was the strong executive power exerted by the audit of the industrial hygiene program from the US head office. In the fourth step, there was a change to actually reduce noise. The driving force in this stage was a change in company executives' risk perception resulting from lawsuits over noise-induced hearing loss and the task force team activities for culture change based on the action learning protocol. At the fifth stage, a 'buy quiet policy' was institutionalized. The management's experience that noise reduction was difficult was the motivation to manage noise from the time of purchase of equipment. Conclusions: The activities of a hearing conservation program are determined by the improvement of the legal system and by the way it is enforced. Noise control activities to reduce noise areas may be possible through the shared risk perception of noise-induced hearing loss and by a change agent role as a facilitator to implement noise control.