• Korean Journal of Family Social Work
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• no.55
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• pp.129-156
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• 2017

The study was conducted to identify factors that affect the first childbearing decisions among married working women in South Korea and thereby to gain insight into effective ways to improve relatively low fertility and unfavorable workplace conditions for women of childbearing age. This study used the merged data(1st-5th waves) from Korean Longitudinal Survey of Women and Families (KLoWF), which were measured by the Korean Women's Development Institute. With 1,020 married business women, cross tab and binary logistic regression were conducted to determine which factors were significantly associated with the first childbearing decisions.

• 한국사회정책
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.141-172
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• 2016

This study examines the employment conditions and labour experience of elementary after-school care teachers in South Korea. Based on the empirical data collected through in-depth interviews with after-school care teachers in Gwangju Metropolitan City, the study considers multifaceted problems faced by after-school care teachers in their workplace. The after-school care class is part of educational policies initiated and rapidly expanded by the Ministry of Education, resulting in the substantial increase of non-regular school workers. The irregularization of after-school care teachers illustrates that the common problems faced by female non-regular workers, such as social discrimination, exclusion and inequality, are also transplanted into the typical public sector. In the case of Gwangju Metropolitan City, during the past two years there have been evident increases both in under 15-hour short time contract care teachers and outsourcing of care classes. Temporary part-time contract care teachers suffer relentless job insecurity and experience poor working conditions, exclusion and discrimination within the workplace and labour alienation. In order to minimize the organized resistance of care teachers, school authorities implicitly individualize and isolate care teachers through hierarchization, the division of labour and the spatial division of classes between indefinite and temporary contract teachers.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.339-345
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• 2018

The integrated environmental permit system is currently in operation online. It carries out various functions of postmanagement such as the submission of annual reports containing operations management data onto integrated management workplaces, the operation and management of emission facilities and prevention facilities, and the disclosure of information on the integrated permission. On the other hand, the integrated environmental permit system needs to perform various roles in order to stably manage and smoothly perform the permitting work. It is necessary to utilize this system to establish policies by using diverse operations management data onto integrated management workplaces collected in the integrated environmental permit system. This system can also play a role in improving the post-management system and user convenience after the permission review and approval processes. The integrated environmental permit system can be effectively used to set up the BAT-AEL because it collects all of the cross-media data and identifies the overall status of the workplace. In order to establish a post management system after the approval, it is necessary to provide performance management and performance evaluation functions as conditions of the permit after approval. In addition, a variety of support functions should be provided to enable the permission authority and the environmental expert examination agency to facilitate the review of permits. It will be necessary to provide an evaluation system and a proactive diagnostic function to determine whether permission conditions and permit emission standards will change in the future. Also, it is important to adopt an information exchange platform that can be used to collect the status data onto the workplaces; the platform can also be used as an information exchange site for technical working groups (TWG), and for collecting field experts' opinions.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.17-23
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• 2024

Background: The present study aimed to analyze several aspects of the working conditions and health status of platform workers in the Republic of Korea, such as ergonomic and emotional hazards. We also compared the health status of the platform workers with that of the general population. Methods: A total of 1,000 platform workers participated in this survey from August 7 to August 17, 2022. The participants included 400 designated drivers, 400 food-delivery drivers, and 200 housekeeping managers. A face-to-face survey with a structured questionnaire was conducted by researchers who had received specific instructions. The focus of the survey extended to the work environment, encompassing factors such as workplace violence, as well as physical, chemical, and ergonomic hazards. Health-related data for the previous year were also collected, covering a range of issues such as hearing problems, skin problems, musculoskeletal symptoms, headaches, injuries, mental health issues, and digestive problems. Subsequently, we compared the health symptom data of the responders with those of the general population in the Republic of Korea. Results: Platform workers, including designated drivers, food-delivery drivers, and housekeeping managers, existed in the blind spot of social insurance, facing frequent exposure to physical and chemical hazards, ergonomic risk factors, and direct or indirect violence. The prevalence of health problems, including musculoskeletal symptoms, general fatigue, and depressive symptoms, in each occupational group was statistically higher than that in the general population after standardization for age and gender. Conclusion: The results revealed unfavorable working environment and inferior occupational health of platform workers compared with those of the general population.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.29 no.1 s.52
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• pp.1-14
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• 1996

To evaluate the health risk of the workplace environment of a general hospital toward the hospital workers, a questionnaire survey on the perception of risk at the workplace environment and environmental measurements at 27 locations with 240 workers in the hospital were made from October 25th, 1993 to October 30th, 1994. The results were as follows ; 1. By the environmental measurements, 86 workers(36%) were found to be exposed to poor or harmful degree of general illumination, 193 workers(80%) were exposed to poor or harmful local illumination, 34 workers(14%) were exposed to poor or harmful degree of thermal condition and 180 workers(75%) were exposed to poor or harmful noise level, but nobody was exposed to poor or harmful dust and toluene concentration. Also nobody was exposed to poor or harmful level of radiation or anticancer/antibiotic agents. 2. The subjective perceptions on the environmental conditions felt by the workers were different from the objective findings by the environmental measurements. The workers underscored the poor illumination state and overscored the dust concentrations. Also workers oversensitized about the thermal condition, the noise level, the radiation level, the toluene concentration and anticancer/antibiotic agents 3. The sources of noise were the dialogue(179 workers) and the office instruments(131 workers). The sources of dust came from the clothes(108 workers) and the building materials(79 workers). 4. The questionnaire survey showed that the 28 workers were exposed to poor or harmful level of the antibiotics, 10 workers to alkali or acid and 6 workers to drug dust in the pharmacy but the above findings could not be proved by the environmental measurements.

• The Journal of Korea CHUNA Manual Medicine
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.125-139
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• 2002

Objectives : The purpose of this study is to review and summarize about occupational medicine and to applicate the occupational medicine to oriental medicine. Methods : We investigated several books, articles and related internet sites to know occupational medicine's present conditions in Korea and other countries, and researched the plan on oriental medical participation in the industrial health. Results and Conclusion : The conclusions are as follows, 1. Recent years, industrialization has changed working environment and health condition in workplace, so industrial health service has became important part. 2. Occupational medicine has the purpose of protection. prevention, fitness, health management, medical treatment. rehabilitation, and primary medical service. The range of occupational medicine is enlarged mental, social good health and social, economical production capacity recently. 3. After research each country's occupational medicine, we can know the purpose is same, but the system and work contents are different one another. 4. Oriental medical participation in the industrial health has various benefits, satisfaction of workers, efficiency of cost, and increasing rate of medical treatment through the western and oriental medical cooperation.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.231-236
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• 2016

Background: To analyze the effects of the factors associated with different types of injury (superficial wounds, dislocations and sprains, bone fractures, concussion and internal injuries, burns scalding and freezing) caused by occupational accidents in automotive repair workshops. Methods: Study of a sample consisting of 89,954 industry accidents reported from 2003 to 2008. Odds ratios were calculated with a 95% confidence interval. Results: Belonging to a small company is a risk factor for suffering three of the five types of injury studied. Women are less likely to suffer burns and superficial wounds, and more likely to suffer dislocations or sprains. Foreign workers are more likely to suffer concussion and internal injuries. Conclusion: Health and safety strategies and accident prevention measures should be individualized and adapted to the type of worker most likely to be injured in each type of accident. Occupational health and safety training courses designed according to worker profile, and improving the participation of the workers in small firms creating regional or roving safety representatives would improve working conditions.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.184-191
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• 2015

Chemical mutagenicity is a major hazard that is important to workers' health. Despite the use of large amounts of allyl chloride, the available mutagenicity data for this chemical remains controversial. To clarify the mutagenicity of allyl chloride and because a micronucleus (MN) test had not yet been conducted, we screened for MN induction by using male ICR mice bone marrow cells. The test results indicated that this chemical is not mutagenic under the test conditions. In this paper, the regulatory test battery and several assay combinations used to determine the genotoxic potential of chemicals in the workplace have been described. Further application of these assays may prove useful in future development strategies of hazard evaluations of industrial chemicals. This study also should help to improve the testing of this chemical by commonly used mutagenicity testing methods and investigations on the underlying mechanisms and could be applicable for workers' health.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.249-261
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• 2020

Background: Hearing loss is one of the most prevalent worker health conditions worldwide. Although the effect of noise exposure on hearing is well researched, other workplace exposures may account for significant hearing loss. The aim of this review was to determine whether occupational hand-arm vibration exposure through use of power or pneumatic tools, independent of noise exposure, is associated with permanent hearing loss. Do workers suffer from hand-arm vibratione-induced hearing loss? Methods: Peer-reviewed articles published in English between 1981 and 2020 were identified through five online databases with five search keywords. Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses guidelines, including online database search methodology, study selection, article exclusion, and assessment of potential study design confounders and biases, were followed. Results: Database searches retrieved 697 articles. Fifteen articles that reported 17 studies met the criteria for review. All but two studies revealed statistically significant associations between occupational exposure to hand-arm vibration and hearing loss. The majority of the study results revealed associations between hand-arm vibration and hearing loss, independent of potential age and noise confounders. Conclusion: Few studies have examined the association between occupational exposure to hand-arm vibration and hearing loss. Dose response data were limited as only one study measured vibration intensity and duration. Although the majority of studies identified statistically significant associations, causal relationships could not be determined. Further research using standardized and uniform measurement protocols is needed to confirm whether the association between occupational exposure to hand-arm vibration and permanent hearing loss is causal and the mechanism(s).

• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.13-21
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• 2016

Objectives: The present study aims to examine associations between job demands and problem drinking, smoking, and practice of regular exercise among middle-aged and older male employees. Methods: Analyses were based on 239 employees aged 50+ and participated the 1st(2006) and the 4th(2012) waves of the Korean Longitudinal Study of Ageing(KLoSA). Panel logit regression analyses were performed to explore longitudinal associations between physical and cognitive job demands and the health behaviors when effects of demographic characteristics and objective job conditions were controlled. Results: Results suggested that first, workers who reported greater cognitive job demands were less likely to engage in problem drinking over the 6-year-period. Second, increased physical demands of the job were associated with greater odds of smoking, while physical demands predicted a reduced likelihood of practicing regular exercise. Conclusions: Results from the present analyses emphasize job demands could lead workers to problem health behaviors and suggest areas for health promotion efforts at the workplace that are sensitive to the needs of aging workers.