• Title/Summary/Keyword: Workplace Environment

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A Study on the Safety Culture and Effective Management System (안전문화와 효율적 안전경영 방안 연구)

  • Yi Kwan Hyung;Oh Ji Young
    • Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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    • v.7 no.3
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    • pp.1-15
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    • 2005
  • Recently in Korean Society, risk and safety has become a central discourse in not only the social and natural science but also political decision making. The efficient organizational management contributes to controlling the risk factors in the workplace. For the management is influenced and improved by the organizational culture, the alternatives more than simply improving the work environment or enforcing the education of safety on each workers are required. This study was the status of safety culture in organizational members(managers and workers, and specialist) including the attitude on the safety atmosphere and risk perception, and experiences, knowledges, motivation etc. For this part, the method of questionnaire and statistical analysis are mobilized. The degree of safety commitment of organization members appears relatively high (3.97 in five scale estimation), but there are variations in this results according to socio-demographic characteristics. At the same time, managers and professionals actively participation in the program related to safety than workers in production/sales. The higher income level and career is the more attention to the safety is. Based on this survey, we make an rough suggestion of several tasks to the policy -makers: improvement of communication on the risk and safety is required and in particular, the workers in the relatively low level in production/sales. The education system about safety which is, with one-side, provided by government or managers turns out to be inefficient. Rather, small group performance of the organizational members which they participate in the communication with interaction in the various discourse are able to provoke the safety mood in workplace.

Occupational Injuries and Illness of Nursing Staff (간호인력의 업무상손상과 질병)

  • Kim, Eun-A
    • Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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    • v.22 no.4
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    • pp.275-284
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    • 2013
  • Purpose: This study analyzed the characteristics of occupational injuries and illnesses of the nursing staff to reveal the prevalence of the major diseases and the predominant causes of the injuries in the nursing environment. Methods: Total 3,455 work-related compensation cases of nursing staff from January 1 2000 to December 31 2012, were selected. The specific types of the diseases, injuries, causes and the time of the incidence were analyzed. Results: Majority of the compensated cases were young women under 30 years old. The composition of the occupational injuries and illness was 74.5% and 25.5%, respectively. Occupational infection was the major part of the occupational illnesses (47.3%), and 74% of them were tuberculosis. Musculoskeletal disorder (12.6%) was followed the infectious disease, and 36.4% of them occurred while moving the patients. Slipping was the most frequent injury; most of them resulted in the lower extremities injury. Most of the injuries increased during shift change, except workplace violence, which increased later than 19:00. Conclusion: Occupational injuries and illnesses of nursing staff need the specific prevention strategy, and the prevention strategy should be suitable for the nursing workplace.

Banding the World Together; The Global Growth of Control Banding and Qualitative Occupational Risk Management

  • Zalk, David M.;Heussen, Ga Henri
    • Safety and Health at Work
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    • v.2 no.4
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    • pp.375-379
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    • 2011
  • Control Banding (CB) strategies to prevent work-related illness and injury for 2.5 billion workers without access to health and safety professionals has grown exponentially this last decade. CB originates from the pharmaceutical industry to control active pharmaceutical ingredients without a complete toxicological basis and therefore no occupational exposure limits. CB applications have broadened into chemicals in general - including new emerging risks like nanomaterials and recently into ergonomics and injury prevention. CB is an action-oriented qualitative risk assessment strategy offering solutions and control measures to users through "toolkits". Chemical CB toolkits are user-friendly approaches used to achieve workplace controls in the absence of firm toxicological and quantitative exposure information. The model (technical) validation of these toolkits is well described, however firm operational analyses (implementation aspects) are lacking. Consequentially, it is often not known if toolkit use leads to successful interventions at individual workplaces. This might lead to virtual safe workplaces without knowing if workers are truly protected. Upcoming international strategies from the World Health Organization Collaborating Centers request assistance in developing and evaluating action-oriented procedures for workplace risk assessment and control. It is expected that to fulfill this strategy's goals, CB approaches will continue its important growth in protecting workers.

The effects of a 52-hour workweek policy on meat consumption patterns in Korea

  • Cho, Jaesung;Jeong, Minkook;Seo, Gangcheol;Lee, Hyungwoo
    • Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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    • v.48 no.1
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    • pp.83-93
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    • 2021
  • The 52-hour workweek policy in Korea is a system that limits the maximum working hours per week to 52 hours including holiday work, which has been treated separately from overtime work during a week. Although this policy is designed to improve the quality of life and create jobs, it may also reduce the income of some workers. In general, it can be assumed that reduced working hours increase consumption at home. This study analyzed the effect of the 52-hour work policy on meat consumption patterns with the ordered logit model. Major factors considered in this study include working hours, income, and consumption frequency. It distinguished domestic and workplace consumption. The results show that the policy has had an impact on meat consumption patterns both at home and at work. If there is no change in income and only the working hours decrease, meat consumption in households increases. On the other hand, if both income and working hours decrease, household meat consumption decreases. Moreover, reduced working hours decrease the frequency of office happy hour and meat consumption in the workplace. However, the 52-hour workweek policy applies only to workers working more than 52 hours per week; thus, it is difficult to determine the overall effect of the policy on national meat consumption patterns.

Determining Potassium Bromate in the Inhalable Aerosol Fraction in Workplace Air with Ion Chromatography

  • Kowalska, Joanna;Lis, Monika;Biesaga, Magdalena
    • Safety and Health at Work
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    • v.12 no.2
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    • pp.209-216
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    • 2021
  • Background: The article presents the results of studies performed in order to develop a new method of airborne potassium bromate(V) determination at workplaces. Methods: The method is based on a collection of the inhalable fraction of potassium bromate(V) using the IOM Sampler, then extraction of bromates with deionized water and chromatographic analysis of the obtained solution. The analysis was performed using ion chromatography with conductometric detection. The tests were performed on a Dionex IonPac®AS22 analytic column (250 × 4 mm, 6 ㎛) with AG22 precolumn (50 × 4 mm 11 ㎛). Results: The method provides for potassium bromate(V) determination within the concentration range of 0.043 ÷ 0.88 mg/m3 for an air sample of 0.72 m3 in volume, i.e., 0.1-2 times the exposure limit value as proposed in Poland. The method was validated in accordance with PN-EN 482. The obtained validation data are as follows: measuring range: 3.1-63.4 ㎍/mL, limit of detection (LOD) = 0.018 ㎍/mL and limit of quantification (LOQ) = 0.053 ㎍/mL. The developed method has been tested in the work environment, on laboratory employees having contact with potassium bromate(V). Conclusion: The analytical method allowed the determination of the inhalable fraction of airborne potassium bromate(V) at workplaces and can be used to assess occupational exposure.

Numerical Analysis on the Ventilation System Improvement in Air Shot Blast Room (Air Shot Blast 작업실 내부 환기 시스템 개선에 관한 수치해석)

  • Chin, Do-Hun
    • Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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    • v.25 no.5
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    • pp.861-868
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    • 2022
  • The purpose of this study is to design an effective atmospheric environment system through the design of the dust collection in the air shot room being operated in a domestic shipyard. The ventilation system in the current air shot room mostly uses a dust collecting filter to filter internal particles and releases them in the atmosphere. A conventional design was made too much. In order to prevent an error and draw an optimal design, Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) tried to be applied only to air shot room. In the advanced design technique, computer simulation was conducted to secure basic design data. In order to find the basic design of the ventilation system and the flow field in the air shot room at propeller mold workplace of a shipyard, the CFD was conducted. In the case of Model-1 as a conventional workplace, where air flows in the inlet due to the subatmospheric pressure generated by inhalation of an air blower and flows out to the outlet, a discharge flow rate was somewhat low, and there was the holdup zone in the room. In the case of Model-2 as an improved model, the ventilation system was improved in the Push-Pull type, and the holdup of the internal flow field was improved.

Construction Workers' Sensation-Seeking and Inattentiveness to Warning Alarms from Construction Vehicles

  • Kim, Namgyun;Gregoire, Laurent;Anderson, Brian A.;Ahn, Changbum R.
    • International conference on construction engineering and project management
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    • 2022.06a
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    • pp.261-268
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    • 2022
  • In road work zones, pedestrian workers' habituated inattention to warning alarms from construction vehicles can lead to fatal accidents. Previous studies have theorized that human factors such as personality traits may affect workers' inattentiveness to workplace hazards. However, there has been no study that directly examined how road construction workers' personality traits affect their attention to warning alarms within a work zone and the likelihood of engagement in a struck-by accident. This study examines how workers' sensation-seeking (especially boredom susceptibility) is related to inattention to warning alarms while performing a task in road work zones. An experiment with actual road construction workers was conducted using a virtual road construction environment. Workers' attention to repeatedly presented warning alarms was measured using eye-tracking sensors. In response to workers' frequent inattentive behaviors, a virtual accident was simulated. Results revealed a significant association between boredom susceptibility and workers' engagement in the virtual accident, a consequence of inattentiveness to warning alarms. The findings suggest that workers' personality traits predispose them to tune out warning alarms and become vulnerable to accidents in road work zones. The findings of this study can be used to develop targeted interventions aimed at preventing workers' inattention to repeatedly exposed workplace hazards, thereby contributing to reducing fatal accidents in road work zones.

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A Study on the Development of Industrial Robot Workplace Safety System (산업용 로봇 작업장 안전시스템 개발에 대한 연구)

  • Jin-Bae Kim;Sun-Hyun Kwon;Man-Soo Lee
    • Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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    • v.25 no.3
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    • pp.17-22
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    • 2023
  • As the importance of artificial intelligence grows rapidly and emerges as a leader in technology, it is becoming an important variable in the next-generation industrial system along with the robot industry. In this study, a safety system was developed using deep learning technology to provide worker safety in a robot workplace environment. The implemented safety system has multiple cameras installed with various viewing directions to avoid blind spots caused by interference. Workers in various scenario situations were detected, and appropriate robot response scenarios were implemented according to the worker's risk level through IO communication. For human detection, the YOLO algorithm, which is widely used in object detection, was used, and a separate robot class was added and learned to compensate for the problem of misrecognizing the robot as a human. The performance of the implemented system was evaluated by operator detection performance by applying various operator scenarios, and it was confirmed that the safety system operated stably.

Classification of Construction Worker's Activities Towards Collective Sensing for Safety Hazards

  • Yang, Kanghyeok;Ahn, Changbum R.
    • International conference on construction engineering and project management
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    • 2017.10a
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    • pp.80-88
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    • 2017
  • Although hazard identification is one of the most important steps of safety management process, numerous hazards remain unidentified in the construction workplace due to the dynamic environment of the construction site and the lack of available resource for visual inspection. To this end, our previous study proposed the collective sensing approach for safety hazard identification and showed the feasibility of identifying hazards by capturing collective abnormalities in workers' walking patterns. However, workers generally performed different activities during the construction task in the workplace. Thereby, an additional process that can identify the worker's walking activity is necessary to utilize the proposed hazard identification approach in real world settings. In this context, this study investigated the feasibility of identifying walking activities during construction task using Wearable Inertial Measurement Units (WIMU) attached to the worker's ankle. This study simulated the indoor masonry work for data collection and investigated the classification performance with three different machine learning algorithms (i.e., Decision Tree, Neural Network, and Support Vector Machine). The analysis results showed the feasibility of identifying worker's activities including walking activity using an ankle-attached WIMU. Moreover, the finding of this study will help to enhance the performance of activity recognition and hazard identification in construction.

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Psychosocial Work Environment and Self-rated Health of Nurses in a General Hospital (일개 종합병원 간호사의 사회심리적 업무환경과 주관적 건강)

  • Choi, Eunsuk;Lee, Yangsun
    • Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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    • v.23 no.4
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    • pp.219-226
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    • 2014
  • Purpose: This study aims to determine the association between psychosocial work environment and self-rated health among general hospital nurses. Methods: A total of 195 nurses working in one general hospital were eligible for data analysis by multivariate logistic regression. The psychosocial work environment was measured with the Korean version of the Copenhagen Psycosocial Questionnaire version II (COPSOQ-K). Self-rated health was recoded as good (excellent/good) and not good (fair/poor/bad) to the question, "In general, how would you rate your health status?" Results: 40% of nurses rated their health positively. Commitment to the workplace (OR=1.27), predictability (OR=1.32), recognition and reward (OR=1.41), role clarity (OR=1.32), and social support from colleagues (OR=1.25) were positively associated with self-rated health of nurse participants. Work-family conflict (OR=0.82) was negatively associated with self-rated health. Conclusion: The findings suggest that psychological work environment predicts self-rated health of hospital nurses. Good psychological work environment may be helpful in improvement of nurses' health.