• Title/Summary/Keyword: Workplace Safety

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Obesity as a Possible Risk Factor for Lost-time Injury in Registered Nurses: A Literature Review

  • Jordan, Gillian;Nowrouzi-Kia, Behnam;Gohar, Basem;Nowrouzi, Behdin
    • Safety and Health at Work
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    • v.6 no.1
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    • pp.1-8
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    • 2015
  • Time-loss injuries are still a major occurrence in Canada, injuring thousands of Canadian workers each year. With obesity rates on the rise across the country, as well as around the world, it is important that the possible effects of obesity in the workplace be fully understood, especially those effects linked to lost-time injuries. The aim of this paper was to evaluate predictors of workplace lost-time injuries and how they may be related to obesity or high body mass index by examining factors associated with lost-time injuries in the health care sector, a well-studied industry with the highest number of reported time loss injuries in Canada. A literature review focusing on lost-time injuries in Registered Nurses (RNs) was conducted using the keywords and terms: lost time injury, workers' compensation, occupational injury, workplace injury, injury, injuries, work, workplace, occupational, nurse, registered nurse, RN, health care, predictors, risk factors, risk, risks, cause, causes, obese, obesity, and body mass index. Data on predictors or factors associated with lost-time injuries in RNs were gathered and organized using Loisel's Work Disability Prevention Management Model and extrapolated upon using existing literature surrounding obesity in the Canadian workplace.

An improvement plan for a workplace monitoring system through random selection of workplaces and unnoticed measurement inspection (사업장 무작위 선정 및 불시측정 방식을 통한 작업환경측정제도 신뢰성 제고 방안)

  • Jeong, Jee Yeon;Kang, Tae Sun;Lee, Seung Gill;Park, Hae Dong;Kim, Ki Youn
    • Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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    • v.27 no.2
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    • pp.105-114
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    • 2017
  • Objectives: The Ministry of Employment and Labor's enforcement programs, such as workplace monitoring inspection, are one of the major public efforts to protect worker's health. Therefore, a more effective inspection method is required for workplace monitoring, which is helpful for controlling health hazards in the workplace. Methods: For this study, we investigated the related safety and health laws, regulations, and inspection guidelines from the USA, Japan, and Korea. We also analyzed the provisions of industrial safety and health acts, which are related to enhancing the reliability of workplace monitoring. We applied the process of opinion convergence through an experts meeting for our research. Results: We proposed an efficient inspection scheme for workplace monitoring that includes how to select companies(mainly randomized inspections by using a workplace measurement database and workers' compensation insurance database), how to proceed with the inspection process(mainly unannounced visits), and who should carry out this project. Conclusions: We conclude that our proposal for the inspection of workplace monitoring could be a very effective tool for reducing the numbers of companies that do not undertake workplace monitoring and could produce reliable monitoring results.

Leading for Safety: A Question of Leadership Focus

  • Molnar, Malin Mattson;Schwarz, Ulrica Von Thiele;Hellgren, Johnny;Hasson, Henna;Tafvelin, Susanne
    • Safety and Health at Work
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    • v.10 no.2
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    • pp.180-187
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    • 2019
  • Background: There is considerable evidence that leadership influences workplace safety, but less is known about the relative importance of different leadership styles for safety. In addition, a leadership style characterized by an emphasis and a focus on promoting safety has rarely been investigated alongside other more general leadership styles. Methods: Data were collected through a survey to which 269 employees in a paper mill company responded. A regression analysis was conducted to examine the relative roles of transformational, transactional (management-by-exception active; MBEA), and safety-specific leadership for different safety behavioral outcomes (compliance behavior and safety initiative behaviors) and for minor and major injuries. Results: A safety-specific leadership contributed the most to the enhanced safety of the three different kinds of leadership. Transformational leadership did not contribute to any safety outcome over and above that of a safety-specific leadership, whereas a transactional leadership (MBEA) was associated with negative safety outcomes (fewer safety initiatives and increased minor injuries). Conclusion: The most important thing for leaders aiming at improving workplace safety is to continuously emphasize safety, both in their communication and by acting as role models. This highlights the importance for leadership training programs aiming to improve safety to actually focus on safety-promoting communication and behaviors rather than general leadership. Furthermore, an overly monitoring and controlling leadership style can be detrimental to attempts at achieving improved workplace safety.

The Effect Relationship among Safety Communication, Safety Silence Motives and Silence Behaviour for Workers in Natural Gas Workplace (도시가스 사업장 근로자에 대한 안전커뮤니케이션, 안전침묵 동기와 침묵행동 사이의 영향관계)

  • Kim, Hye-jin;Park, Dal-Jae
    • Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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    • v.23 no.2
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    • pp.35-44
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    • 2019
  • One of the key factors of a safe workplace is to communicate with the workers about safety. For this, natural gas workplace is developing and operating related programs or communication activities. But, if there are silence behavior of the workers on the safety issues in this process, no positive outcomes could be expected for the workplace. The purpose of this study is to examine how safety silence motives, silence behavior, and safety communication influence each other. A total of 233 questionnaires based on the workers of natural gas workplace (in Seoul and Gyeonggi) were analyzed. The confidence analysis is to check consistency of the questions, analysis of the correlations between factors, and regression analysis to verify the hypotheses. As a result, the safety silence motives affected safety communication more seriously than the silence behavior did. Safety communication influenced safety silence motives more significantly than the silence behavior. The safety silence motives can be one of the reasons for safety communication to fail, and it was confirmed that a good safety communication does not necessary mean that there is no safety silence motivation. Based on such results, it is expected that improving and developing the safety communication activities of the workplace, it would improve safety in workplace in general.

The Effect of Workplace Bullying Perception on Psychological Symptoms: A Structural Equation Approach

  • Duru, Pinar;Ocaktan, Mine Esin;Celen, Umit;Orsal, Ozlem
    • Safety and Health at Work
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    • v.9 no.2
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    • pp.210-215
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    • 2018
  • Background: The aims of this study were to determine the extent of workplace bullying perceptions among the employees of a Faculty of Medicine, evaluating the variables considered to be associated, and determining the effect of workplace bullying perceptions on their psychological symptoms evaluated by the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI). Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed involving 355 (88.75%) employees. Results: Levels of perceived workplace bullying were found to increase with the increasing scores for BSI and BSI sub-dimensions of anxiety, depression, negative self, somatization, and hostility (all p < 0.001). One point increase in the workplace bullying perception score was associated with a 0.47 point increase in psychological symptoms evaluated by BSI. Moreover, the workplace bullying perception scores were most strongly affected by the scores of anxiety, negative self, depression, hostility, and somatization (all p < 0.05). Conclusion: The present results revealed that young individuals, divorced individuals, faculty members, and individuals with a chronic disease had the greatest workplace bullying perceptions with our study population. Additionally, the BSI, anxiety, depression, negative self, somatization, and hostility scores of the individuals with high levels of workplace bullying perceptions were also high.

Developing of the Ergonomic Workplace Analysis Program in Manufacturing Industry (인간공학적 작업장 평가 프로그램의 개발)

  • 이윤원;신용백
    • Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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    • v.3 no.3
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    • pp.45-54
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    • 2001
  • This paper investigate and compare the appraisement methods and programs are related in Ergonomic, which in foreign country are approved to appraise worker's posture and environment. First, Search the appraisement program to need and develop the program. Second, Design and develop the standard model that easy and accurate, and apply to our country workstation. To response above mention, we made the EWAP(Ergonomic Workplace Analysis program) and purpose of EWAP is assisting the activity of safety management to assess more detail and delicate through quantitative methodology in which operated the Ergonomic Workplace safety management. EWAP can provide the more convenience where need to analyze their Ergonomic Workplace problem and developed by the algorithm of Ergonomic Workplace Analysis management.

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A Study on the Evaluation of Safety Climate in the Service Industry (서비스업 사업장 안전분위기 평가에 관한 연구)

  • Kwon, Oh-Jun;Choe, Seong-Weon;Kim, Young-Sun
    • Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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    • v.25 no.4
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    • pp.76-83
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    • 2010
  • As one of crucial industries, the service industry occupies a large part of economy in Korea poor in natural resources. However, prevention of industrial disasters has been promoted mainly in manufacturing and construction industries where the frequencies of such disasters and victims are high. Research on the evaluation of workplace safety climate has been conducted centering on traditional industries like manufacturing and construction, and few studies have been made for service businesses. The objective of this study was to evaluate workplace safety climate perceived in the field by workers engaged in service businesses and to contribute to the establishment of industrial safety and health policies in consideration of the characteristics of each business category. Using research variables safety knowledge, safety attitude, safety motivation, safety participation, safety compliance, and safeness of work environment, we evaluated comprehensive workplace safety climate based on the causal relations among the variables. In the results of analyzing data from a questionnaire survey of service business employees, statistically significant effect relations among the variables were identified, and the fitness of the model with approved reliability and validity was verified.

An Analysis of Policy Priority for Work-Related Injury & illness and Investment Losses of Workplace Safety (작업관련성 손상·질병 발생과 손실비용에 따른 예방정책 우선순위 연구)

  • Park, Kyoung-Don;Yi, Kwan-Hyung
    • Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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    • v.15 no.4
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    • pp.7-16
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    • 2013
  • As workplace incidents has been being declining in Korea, there is criticism of the effectiveness of occupational safety policy implementation. It is unknown that which policy target group needs to be targeted to yield effective injuries prevention. The purpose of this paper is to analyze and reveal the policy intervention group with a high priority in terms of industrial incident prevention and the related investment cost. A Policy Priority Model(PPM) is composed of 6 indicators regarding influences of both the incident reduction and the cost reduction. Z-score analyses are used to confirm the high policy priority area or policy target group. Overall, workplace with worker below 50 persons, construction site with the sales of more than a hundred million won, workplace with relatively small percentage of female employees and relatively higher percentage of older worker should be prioritized to reduce workplace injuries. This paper provides an analytic way that can be used to decide the policy priority workplace in order not only to reduce work-related injuries&illnesses and the related investment cost but to further lessen the related societal costs.

Do Personality and Organizational Politics Predict Workplace Victimization? A Study among Ghanaian Employees

  • Amponsah-Tawiah, Kwesi;Annor, Francis
    • Safety and Health at Work
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    • v.8 no.1
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    • pp.72-76
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    • 2017
  • Background: Workplace victimization is considered a major social stressor with significant implications for the wellbeing of employees and organizations. The aim of this study was to examine the influences of employees' personality traits and organizational politics on workplace victimization among Ghanaian employees. Methods: Using a cross-sectional design, data were collected from 631 employees selected from diverse occupations through convenience sampling. Data collection tools were standardized questionnaires that measured experiences of negative acts at work (victimization), the Big Five personality traits, and organizational politics. Results: The results from hierarchical multiple regression analysis showed that among the personality traits neuroticism and conscientiousness had significant, albeit weak relationships with victimization. Organizational politics had a significant positive relationship with workplace victimization beyond employees' personality. Conclusion: The study demonstrates that compared with personal characteristics such as personality traits, work environment factors such as organizational politics have a stronger influence on the occurrence of workplace victimization.

Improving the Workplace Experience of Caregiver-Employees: A Time-Series Analysis of a Workplace Intervention

  • Ding, Regina;Dardas, Anastassios;Wang, Li;Williams, Allison
    • Safety and Health at Work
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    • v.12 no.3
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    • pp.296-303
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    • 2021
  • Background: Rapid population aging in developed countries has resulted in the working-age population increasingly being tasked with the provision of informal care. Methods: An educational intervention was delivered to 21 carer-employees employed at a Canadian University. Work role function, job security, schedule control, work-family conflict, familywork conflict, and supervisor and coworker support were measured as part of an aggregated workplace experience score. This score was used to measure changes pre/post intervention and at a follow-up period approximately 12 months post intervention. Three random intercept models were created via linear mixed modeling to illustrate changes in participants' workplace experience across time. Results: All three models reported statistically significant random and fixed effects intercepts, with a positive coefficient of change. Conclusion: This suggests that the intervention demonstrated an improvement of the workplace experience score for participants over time, with the association particularly strong immediately after intervention.