• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.313-323
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• 2017

Objectives: This study aimed to assess exposure to black carbon(BC) among forklift operators and to identify environmental and occupational factors influencing their BC exposure. Methods: We studied a total of 23 forklift operators from six workplaces manufacturing paper boxes. A daily BC exposure assessment was conducted during working hours from January to April 2017. A micro-aethalometer was used to monitor daily BC exposure, and information on work activities was also obtained through a time-activity diary(TAD) and interviews. BC exposure records were classified into four categories influencing BC exposure level: working environment, workplace, forklift operation, and job characteristics. Analysis of variance(ANOVA) was used to compare average BC exposure levels among the four categories and the relationships between potential factors and BC exposure were analyzed using a multiple linear regression model. Results: The operators' daily exposure was $12.9{\mu}g/m^3$(N=9,148, $GM=7.5{\mu}g/m^3$) with a range: $0.001-811.4{\mu}g/m^3$. The operators were exposed to significantly higher levels when they operate a forklift in a room ${\leq}20,000m^3$($AM=12.3{\mu}g/m^3$), in indoor workplaces($AM=16.3{\mu}g/m^3$), when they operate a forklift manufactured before 2006 ($AM=13.2{\mu}g/m^3$), a forklift with a loading limit of four-tons($AM=27.1{\mu}g/m^3$), with a roll and bale type clamp($AM=17.1{\mu}g/m^3$), and with no particulate filter($AM=15.7{\mu}g/m^3$). Conclusions: Occupational factors including temperature, smoking, season, daytime, room volume($m^3$), location of operating, and manufacturing era and model of forklift influenced the BC exposure of forklift operators. The results of this study can be used to minimize the BC exposure of forklift operators.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.550-561
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• 2019

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to provide basic data for the improvement of the working environment for health prevention and related countermeasures for shift workers. This study was conducted based on the Fifth Korean Working Conditions Survey (KWCS), which analyzed the health effects of shift work forces and compared them with preceding studies. Methods: By analyzing secondary rates using raw data from the 5th KWCS, 4,870 (9.7%) of the 50,184 total study subjects were divided into shift work and 45,314 (90.3%) non-shift work groups based on the response to shift status. Variables that could affect work health issues were identified and corrected. A cross-analysis was conducted to examine demographic characteristics (gender, age, and education level) of the workers and occupation characteristics (monthly net earnings, employment type, occupation, working period up to now, workplace scale, type of work system, and weekly working hours). In order to find the work health issue ratio between the shift and non-shift work groups, logistic regression was analyzed and the association with health problems according to shift type by gender was looked at through cross-analysis. Results: According to the surveys conducted from the 1st KWCS (2006) to the 5th KWCS (2017), the proportion of shift workers continued to increase. Also, muscular pains in the lower limbs (hips, legs, knees, feet, etc.) (OR=1.135, 95%CI 1.031-1.251), headaches, eyestrain (OR=1.580, 95% CI 1.428-1.748), anxiety (OR=1.715, 95% CI 1.402-2.099), difficulty falling asleep (OR=1.391), and other problems (OR=7.392) were reported. In addition, back pain, muscular pains in shoulders, neck and/or upper limbs, muscular pains in lower limbs (hips, legs, knees, feet, etc.), headaches, eyestrain, depression, anxiety, overall fatigue resulted in significant results for both male and female shift workers. Depression and anxiety were higher in female shift/circulation compared to males. Conclusions: The social nets for the health and safety of shift workers should be explored in a variety of ways, including management and supervision of shift sites, attempts to reorganize and improve the shift system, development of workers' health recovery programs, promotion, systematic treatment, and compensation systems.

• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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• v.4
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• pp.48-57
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• 1995

The purpose of this study was to assess the performance of the role and function of some industrial nurses and to characterize the factors affecting the performance of their activities. Thus the results could be used to suggest the direction in the performance of industrials nurses' activities effectively. During a period from January 10 to March 31, 1994, the data were collected from 87 industrial nurses, who were working as health managers in the plants, in Ulsan city and the vicinity in Kyungnam province, using a structured questionnaire. The results were as follows : 1. The general characteristics of industrial nurses in this study were 82.8% being 30 years old or less, 60.9%, being not married, and 93.1% having eduction levels above junior college. 2. With respect to general work conditions, 94.3% were working in a separate room provided for health care division, 40.2% working under the safety and health department, and 98.9% working as common-level staffs. And 60.9% were working less than 44 hours a week, 70.1% had work experiences less than 5 years, and 50.6% had annual incomes ranging 10 to 14 million wons. 3. As work conditions related to health care activities, 49.4% performed the activities not related to health care as always or occasionally, and 87.4% answered that occupational physicians were appointed in their plant and among them, however, only 6.9% worked on full-time basis and 52.8% perform little activities as occupational physicians. For a decision related to health care activity, 69.0% discussed the problems with the supervisors, and 19.5% made decisions by themselves. 4. As for attitude and perception to their activities as health managers, 66.7% moderately recognized the importance of health manager in the workplace, with 63.2% being satisfied their wages and treatment from the company, 57.5% being satisfied with their job positions and 51.7% having positive attitudes as being health managers. 5. The degree of performance at least in one of health related activities were very high in activities such as general medical care(100%), general health examination(98.0%) and specific health examination(100%), and relatively high in health education(72%), new employee health examination(60.9%), document handling(79.3%) and activity for work environment(70.1%). However, the performance rate was very low in preparing protective equipment (20.8%). 6. The levels of activities related to health care were significantly high when making decisions by themselves, when occupational physicians not being full-time, and when satisfying their job positions, and, on the other hand, significantly decreased as work hours increased. 7. In addition to some kinds of periodic education asked by all of the nurses, 89.7% wanted a specialized licensing system for industrial nurse, and 97.4% wanted to apply for the license test. As a conclusion, it is suggested that industrial nurses should be given more authority and placed in more self-controlled system to perform health care and other activities more efficiently, and the role and function of the occupational physician should be clearly distinguished from that of the industrial nurse as a health manager to avoid an unnecessary overlapping.

• Journal of dental hygiene science
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.280-286
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• 2015

The purpose of this study was to examine dental hygienist's emotional labor, burnout and turnover intention. Data were collected from 215 dental hygienists working at hospitals and dental clinics through self-administered questionnaire, and analyzed by statistical analysis using t-test, ANOVA, Pearson's correlation coefficient and multiple regression analysis. The main findings of the study are as follows: the higher the educational level of dental hygienists, and the bigger the size of dental institutions they work, and the lower the monthly income of dental hygienists, the higher the level of emotional labor of dental hygienists. Burnout was influenced on emotional labor and turnover intention. Emotion labor and turnover intention were influenced on burnout. Tenure under 5 years, five-day workweek (non), emotional burnout were found to have significant effects on the turnover intention. Dental hygienists were doing relatively high emotional labor, and it influences his burnout experience and turnover intention. It is needed to make the workplace better environment which can secure appropriate work load and rewards, and education programs etc.

• Journal of the Korean Applied Science and Technology
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.582-593
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• 2020

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of parenting stress and role conflict on turnover intention in hospital nurses. This study was 142 nurses working in university hospitals and two general hospitals. The analysis of the collected data was analyzed by using SPSS / WIN 23.0. The average score were parenting stress 2.50 out of 4, role conflict 2.48 out of 5, and turnover intention 2.71 out of 5. In order to analyze the factors affecting the turnover intention, multiple regression analysis was conducted using the role conflict, parenting stress, and job satisfaction. Parenting stress (β= .257 p<.001), job satisfaction (β= .242, p<.001) and role conflict(β=.161 p<.001) were resulted. The explanatory power of these factors Was 45.6%. In conclusion, the turnover intention of hospital nurses was found to be an important factor of parenting stress, role conflict, and job satisfaction. In order to lower the parenting stress and role conflicts and reduce the turnover intention of married nurses, it is necessary to reduce the parenting stress and role conflict in the hospital and home. To improving the job satisfaction of the nurses, it is necessary to improve the workplace environment and welfare.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.99-108
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• 2011

Almost all companies have paid much attention to the safety management ranging from maintenance to operation even at the stage of designing in order to prevent accidents, but fatal accidents continue to increase throughout the world. In particular, it is essential to systematically prevent such fatal accidents as fire, explosion or leakage of toxic gas at factories in order to not only protect the workers and neighbors but also prevent economic losses and environmental pollution. Though it is well known that accident probability is very low in NPP(Nuclear Power Plants), the reason why many researches are still being performed about the accidents is the results may be so severe. HRA is the main process to make preparation for possibility of human error in designing of the NPP. But those techniques have some problems and limitation as follows; the evaluation sensitivity of those techniques are out of date. And the evaluation of human error is not coupled with the design process. Additionally, the scope of the human error which has to be included in reliability assessment should be expanded. This work focuses on the coincidence of human error and mechanical failure for some important performance shaping factors to propose a method for improving safety effectively of the process industries. In order to apply in these purposes into the thesis, I found 63 critical Performance Shaping Factors of the eight dimensions throughout studies that I executed earlier. In this study, various analysis of opinion of specialists(Personal Factors, Training, Knowledge or Experience, Procedures and Documentation, Information, Communications, HMI, Workplace Design, Quality of Environment, Team Factors) and the guideline for construction of PSF were accomplished. The selected method was AHP which simplifies objective conclusions by maintaining consistency. This research focused on the implementation process of PSF to evaluate the process of PSF at each phase. As a result, we propose an evaluation model of PSF as a tool to find critical problem at each phase and improve on how to resolve the problems found at each phase. This evaluation model makes it possible to extraction of PSF succesfully by presenting the basis of assessment which will be used by enterprises to minimize the trial and error of construction process of PSF.

• Journal of dental hygiene science
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.295-301
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• 2014

This research purports to find out the factors that affect the level of emotional labor in dental hygienists. Data were collected from 204 dental hygienists working at 5 university hospitals and 55 dental clinics through self-administered questionnaire, and analyzed by statistical analysis using t-test, ANOVA, and regression analysis. The main findings of the study are as follows: First, the higher the educational level of dental hygienists, and the bigger the size of dental institutions they work, the higher the level of emotional labor of dental hygienists. Second, patient and environmental factors were found to have significant effects on the level of emotional labor. The above results imply that managers should try to make the workplace better environment which can secure appropriate workload and rewards, and support for work related education programs etc. It is also needed to educate the patients in order to prevent unnecessary conflicts between the patients and dental hygienists.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.153-161
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• 2009

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate 1) blood lead levels of workers at auto repair shops as Biological Exposure Indices (BEI) of toxic substances such as lead and toluene that are produced during automotive painting process, 2) the differences depending on personal characteristics of workers who have been exposed to toluene by using urine hippuric acid concentration as a marker and 3) the correlation between the concentration of hazardous chemicals in each workplace and the BEL. All subjects were male with a mean age of 36.2 years. In terms of age, most were in the 30 to 40 age group (13 persons, 48.1%). In relation to the length of work experience, the highest proportion had experience of 10 years of less (18 persons, 66.7%). Twenty three workers were cigarette smokers (85.2%) while 4 (14.8%) were non-smokers. In addition, more than 80% of the workers drank alcohol. Dust concentration and toluene exposure during automotive painting showed no significant difference with age, length of work experience, smoking and drinking while a significant difference (p<0.05) has been detected between lead concentration and smoking. The geometric mean of dust concentration, lead concentration and toluene concentration were $0.38mg/m^3,\;0.0021mg/m^3$ and 1.08ppm respectively. In addition, the geometric mean of blood lead levels and urine hippuric acid concentration were $1.70{\mu}g/dl$ and 0.25g/g respectively, which were lower than the standard levels suggested by the Ministry of Labor. To determine the influential factors on blood lead and urine hippuric acid concentrations, a correlation analysis has been conducted with variables of air, lead and toluene concentrations, age, length of work experience and amount of cigarette smoking. According to the analysis, a relatively high correlation (p<0.01) has been observed between air lead concentration and biological sample concentration.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.86-93
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• 2016

The existence of high temperature equipment such as steam pipe, deaerator, steam storage tanks and main steam stop valves makes relatively higher workplace temperature in a power plant of the turbine building. In order to cool down the air temperature in the turbine building, the outside air flow with lower temperature passes through the window and the hotter air in the building is extracted to the outside by installing the ventilation fan on the roof. Nevertheless, higher temperature regions near the high temperature equipment still exist in the turbine building and additional fans for the temperature reduction in the higher temperature region should be examined for the optimal location and mass flow rate. The purpose of the present study is to suggest the optimized location and capacity of the additional ventilation fans for a comfortable working environment. From the present study, it has been elucidated that the additional ventilation fans might be located near the high temperature deaerator and it could reduce the mean temperature in the turbine building by $3.0^{\circ}C$ and the temperature near the deaerator could be reduced by $4.2^{\circ}C$.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.39-47
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• 2021

As domestic construction companies, which used to be concentrated in the Middle East, have expanded their overseas orders to new markets in Asia and Latin America, they have to cope with various conditions. The EPC plant project, which undertakes construction projects such as civil engineering and construction, design, purchase, construction and commissioning, has expanded its scope. As a result, it is important to collect Lessons Learned from the previous project, systematize it, and use it to respond to changes in the environment. However, many employees do not share their skills or experiences voluntarily. To do so, it is necessary to create and systematize a culture that shares experience and technology. In order to understand and analyze the current situation, a questionnaire was conducted on the EPC project-related departments of construction companies implementing the EPC plant project. About 74% of the participants said Lessons Learned's collection and utilization helped. About 53% of the people who collected and registered actual cases and 39% of the people who had experience in preventing problems using cases were identified as employees' perception and utilization of Lessons Learned systems. Detailed analysis showed differences in workplace, duties, and rank. Through this study, the current status of Lessons Learned collection and utilization of EPC plant projects is understood, and the research on collection and utilization improvement is being carried out.