• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.191-197
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• 2014

Background: Disabling fatigue is common in the working age population. It is essential that occupational health (OH) professionals are up-to-date with the management of fatigue in order to reduce the impact of fatigue on workplace productivity. Our aim was to evaluate the impact of one-day workshops on OH professionals' knowledge of fatigue and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), and their confidence in diagnosing and managing these in a working population. Methods: Five interactive problem-based workshops were held in the United Kingdom. These workshops were developed and delivered by experts in the field. Questionnaires were self-administered immediately prior to, immediately after, and 4 months following each workshop. Questionnaires included measures of satisfaction, knowledge of fatigue and CFS, and confidence in diagnosing and managing fatigue. Open-ended questions were used to elicit feedback about the workshops. Results: General knowledge of fatigue increased significantly after training (with a 25% increase in the median score). Participants showed significantly higher levels of confidence in diagnosing and managing CFS (with a 62.5% increase in the median score), and high scores were maintained 4 months after the workshops. OH physicians scored higher on knowledge and confidence than nurses. Similarly, thematic analysis revealed that participants had increased knowledge and confidence after attending the workshops. Conclusion: Fatigue can lead to severe functional impairment with adverse workplace outcomes. One-day workshops can be effective in training OH professionals in how to diagnose and manage fatigue and CFS. Training may increase general knowledge of fatigue and confidence in fatigue management in an OH setting.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.213-219
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• 2022

Objective: The Job Demand & Resources model suggests work characteristics are related to mental well-being and work engagement. Previous work describes the development of a combined construct 'engaged well-being at work' (EWB). To what extent changes in measures of this construct are responsive to changes in job demands and resources or associated with changes in job-related attitudes has not been established. Methods: Longitudinal employee-level data from three waves (German Linked Personnel Panel) were used. Logistic and linear fixed effects regression analyses explored longitudinal associations between changes in EWB for participants over a three-year period with changes in job demands and resources and job-related attitudes (job commitment, satisfaction, and turnover intentions). Results: While job resources were associated with increased odds for a change into a healthier and/or more engaged category of EWB, job demands reduced them. Job resources were more strongly related to higher EWB (OR_range = 1.22 - 1.61) than job demands (OR_range = 0.79 - 0.96). Especially psychological job demands showed negative associations with improved EWB (OR = 0.79). A change from the least desirable category 'disengaged strain' to any other category of EWB was associated with greater odds by up to 20.6 % for increased commitment and job satisfaction and lower odds for turnover intentions. Discussion: Improving work characteristics, especially job resources, could increase employees' EWB, emphasizing the importance of job characteristics for a healthy workplace. Because EWB seems to be associated with job attitudes, an improvement of this indicator would be relevant for employees and employers.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.66-72
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• 2022

Background: The aim of the present study was to evaluate the psychological well-being (PWB) during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in workers of a multinational company. Methods: Employees (aged ≥18 years) were recruited from Latin American, North American, New Zealand, and European sites of a multinational company operative during all the pandemic period. The self-reported Psychological General Well-Being Index was used to assess the global PWB and the effects on six subdomains: anxiety, depressed mood, positive well-being, self-control, general health, and vitality. The influencing role of age, gender, geographical location, COVID-19 epidemiology, and restrictive measures adopted to control the pandemic was explored. Results: A total of 1335 workers completed the survey. The aggregate median PWB global score was in a positive range, with significantly better outcomes detected in the Mexican and Colombian Latin American sites compared with the other worldwide countries (p < 0.001). Among the European locations, a significantly higher PWB score was determined in Spain compared with the German and French sites (p < 0.05). Comparable geographical trends were demonstrated for all the PWB subdomains. Male workers had a significantly better PWB compared with females (p < 0.05), whereas a negative correlation emerged with aging (p = 0.01). COVID-19 epidemiology and pandemic control measures had no clear effects on PWB. Conclusion: Monitoring PWB and the impact of individual and pandemic-related variables may be helpful to clarify the mental health effects of pandemic, define targeted psychological-supporting measures, also in the workplace, to face such a complex situation in a more constructive way.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.35-43
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• 2016

The past five years, industrial accidents due to food processing machinery have been occurred 725 cases, injury by the food cutter occurred 390 cases in its. On this study, to prevent food cutter injury, an attempt is made to present the improved documentation of fundamental safety of the food cutter workplace through the injury analysis of food cutter injury and surveys on band saw machine business field. Analyzing the result of 390 cases on food cutter injury, amputation, cut, puncture occupied 75.1 percent (293 cases), compressed occupied 23.3% (91 cases), also it showed constant component without reference to gender, age, scale of work place, service period. In the survey, lack of concentration for workers have been pointed out as the biggest factor in the cause of band saw machine injury. Meanwhile, such as the EU and Japan, whereas presents safety standards about band saw machines that are tailored to each country, on the other hand, South Korea doesn't provide the standards. To prevent the food cutter injury, safety standards need to be established in consideration of amputation, cut, puncture, compressed injury and financial support is required to procure protective equipment at each place of business.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.140-148
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• 2010

Objectives: Determining the work-relatedness of lung cancer developed through occupational exposures is very difficult. Aims of the present study are to develop a decision tree of occupational lung cancer. Methods: 153 cases of lung cancer surveyed by the Occupational Safety and Health Research Institute (OSHRI) from 1992-2007 were included. The target variable was whether the case was approved as work-related lung cancer, and independent variables were age, sex, pack-years of smoking, histological type, type of industry, latency, working period and exposure material in the workplace. The Classification and Regression Test (CART) model was used in searching for predictors of occupational lung cancer. Results: In the CART model, the best predictor was exposure to known lung carcinogens. The second best predictor was 8.6 years or higher latency and the third best predictor was smoking history of less than 11.25 pack-years. The CART model must be used sparingly in deciding the work-relatedness of lung cancer because it is not absolute. Conclusion: We found that exposure to lung carcinogens, latency and smoking history were predictive factors of approval for occupational lung cancer. Further studies for work-relatedness of occupational disease are needed.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.333-339
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• 2019

Cobots are industrial robots with greatly enhanced safety functions that enable them to work in the same space with workers without protector. Cobots are regulated by the Industrial Safety and Health Act and must be certified according to the manufacturing stage, installation stage and usage stage. The ISO 10218-2 standard applied in the installation phase is difficult to apply in the field. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a risk assessment method based on ISO 12100 standard. This paper proposes a new methodology that combines 'JSA' and 'What-if', which reflects the human error and the lack of known risk factors. Accordingly, a new risk assessment template was proposed and the effectiveness of the developed new template was examined. The current cobot safety regulations need to be unified with safety inspections scheme, and robot safety experts and infrastructures need to be expanded and Robot safety regulations should be unified to 'Robot Act'. Based on this research, risk assessment methods suitable for the field need to be developed additionally, and robot safety regulation needs to be transformed to promote the industry.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2022.06a
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• pp.1202-1208
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• 2022

Techniques based on computer vision are becoming increasingly important in construction safety monitoring. Using AI algorithms can automatically identify conceivable hazards and give feedback to stakeholders. However, the construction site remains various potential hazard situations during the project. Due to the site complexity, many visual devices simultaneously participate in the monitoring process. Therefore, it challenges developing and operating corresponding AI detection algorithms. Safety information resulting from computer vision needs to organize before delivering it to safety managers. This study proposes a framework for computer vision-aided construction safety monitoring using collaborative 4D BIM information to address this issue, called CSM4D. The suggested framework consists of two-module: (1) collaborative BIM information extraction module (CBIE) extracts the spatial-temporal information and potential hazard scenario of a specific activity; through that, Computer Vision-aid Safety Monitoring Module (CVSM) can apply accurate algorithms at the right workplace during the project. The proposed framework is expected to aid safety monitoring using computer vision and 4D BIM.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.22-29
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• 2012

Robot related injuries in industrial accidents statistics during 2008~2010 have accounted for a total of 109 cases equivalent to 30~40 cases for each of those years. The number of injured compared to the dissemination of industrial robots(51,302 units/2004) can be regarded as quite low. However, the fatal injuries sustained by 7 (6.4%) out of 109 cases paints the stark reality of robot-related accident fatalities. It is a sad probability that as the automation process expands its use of industrial robots which have increased significantly in demand, the incidence of workplace accidents will also increase. Therefore, the incidence of accidents throughout the period of 2008~2010 has been analysed to prevent the injuries due to the increased use of industrial robots. In the analysis, the injuries occurred during the industrial robot operation accounted for 45.9% of the entire accidents. Thus, we examined the present status of the industrial robot operation to analyze the root cause of accidents occurred in our studied time period. We looked at a total of 469 workplaces. 456 workplaces responded in the year 2009 and survey studies were implemented at 13 of the 29 workplaces where work injuries were sustained in the year 2010. Even where protective measures and interlock devices were in place, our studies indicated that workers could access the robot area to perform the tasks in 188 sites(40.1%). Also, the 143 sites(30.5%) had control measures and equipment located in the safety fence. In addition, the robots found at 164 sites(35.0%) could be restarted without additional restarting operation. These three causes accounted for most of the workplace injuries during the industrial robot operations. Futhermore, we confirmed the fact that the protective measures of the current safety regulations were not strictly enforced. Based upon our studies and the investigation of the present status of the industrial robot operation, higher standards in training and supervision of workers in the robot operation must quickly be met in order to prevent these industrial injuries.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.530-535
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• 2021

Background: Despite the lack of official COVID-19 statistics, various workplaces and occupations have been at the center of COVID-19 outbreaks. We aimed to compare legal measures and governance established for managing COVID-19 infection risks at workplaces in nine Asia and Pacific countries and to recommend key administrative measures. Methods: We collected information on legal measures and governance from both general citizens and workers regarding infection risks such as COVID-19 from industrial hygiene professionals in nine countries (Indonesia, India, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Republic of the Philippines, Republic of Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand) using a structured questionnaire. Results: A governmental body overseeing public health and welfare was in charge of containing the spread and occurrence of infectious diseases under an infectious disease control and prevention act or another special act, although the name of the pertinent organizations and legislation vary among countries. Unlike in the case of other traditional hazards, there have been no specific articles or clauses describing the means of mitigating virus risk in the workplace that are legally required of employers, making it difficult to define the responsibilities of the employer. Each country maintains own legal systems regarding access to the duration, administration, and financing of paid sick leave. Many workers may not have access to paid sick leave even if it is legally guaranteed.

• 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.