• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.31-39
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• 2021

In Korea, more than half of work-related fatalities have occurred on construction sites. To reduce such occupational accidents, safety inspection by government agencies is essential in construction sites that present a high risk of serious accidents. To address this issue, this study developed risk prediction models of serious accidents in construction sites using five machine learning methods: support vector machine, random forest, XGBoost, LightGBM, and AutoML. To this end, 15 proactive information (e.g., number of stories and period of construction) that are usually available prior to construction were considered and two over-sampling techniques (SMOTE and ADASYN) were used to address the problem of class-imbalanced data. The results showed that all machine learning methods achieved 0.876~0.941 in the F1-score with the adoption of over-sampling techniques. LightGBM with ADASYN yielded the best prediction performance in both the F1-score (0.941) and the area under the ROC curve (0.941). The prediction models revealed four major features: number of stories, period of construction, excavation depth, and height. The prediction models developed in this study can be useful both for government agencies in prioritizing construction sites for safety inspection and for construction companies in establishing pre-construction preventive measures.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.406-414
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• 2023

Background: This study examined age-group differences in the rate, severity, and cost of injuries among construction workers to support evidence-based worker safety and health interventions in the construction industry. Methods: Ohio workers' compensation claims for construction workers were used to estimate claim rates and costs by age group. We analyzed claims data auto-coded into five event/exposure categories: transportation incidents; slips, trips, and falls (STFs); exposure to harmful substances and environments; contact with objects and equipment (COB); overexertion and bodily reaction. American Community Survey data were used to determine the percentage of workers in each age group. Results: From 2007-2017, among 72,416 accepted injury claims for ~166,000 construction full-time equivalent (FTE) per year, nearly half were caused by COB, followed by STFs (20%) and overexertion (20%). Claim rates related to COB and exposure to harmful substances and environments were highest among those 18-24 years old, with claim rates of 313.5 and 25.9 per 10,000 FTE, respectively. STFs increased with age, with the highest claim rates for those 55-64 years old (94.2 claims per 10,000 FTE). Overexertion claim rates increased and then declined with age, with the highest claim rate for those 35-44 years old (87.3 per 10,000 FTE). While younger workers had higher injury rates, older workers had higher proportions of lost-time claims and higher costs per claim. The total cost per FTE was highest for those 45-54 years old ($1,122 per FTE). Conclusion: The variation in rates of injury types by age suggests that age-specific prevention strategies may be useful.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.437-444
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• 2019

Background: Headache/eyestrain symptoms are common health problems that people experience in daily life. Various studies have examined risk factors contributing to headache/eyestrains, and physicochemical exposure was found to be a leading risk factor in causing such symptoms. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of headache/eyestrain symptoms with physicochemical exposure among Korean construction workers depended on worksite. Methods: This study used data from the 4th Korean Workers Conditions Survey and selected 1,945 Korean construction workers as participants. Multivariable logistic regression analysis was used to determine the relationship. Results: Exposure to vibrations among all construction workers affected the moderate exposure group [odds ratio (OR) 1.53, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.01-2.32], the high exposure group (OR 1.77 95%CI 1.17-2.67), and the indoor high exposure group (OR 1.61, 95%CI 1.02-2.55) and among outdoor construction workers, the moderate group (OR 6.61, 95%CI 15.4-28.48) and the high group (OR 6.61, 95%CI 1.56-27.98). When exposed to mist, dust, and fumes, the indoor high exposure group was significantly affected (OR 1.63, 95%CI 1.07-2.47). All construction workers exposed to organic solvents were affected, high exposure group (OR 1.69, 95%CI 1.15-2.49) and indoor high exposure group (OR 1.77, 95%CI 1.08-2.89). The high exposure group in all construction worker (OR 1.70, 95%CI 1.20-2.42) and the indoor high exposure group (OR 1.83, 95%CI 1.17-2.89) also were affected by secondhand smoking exposure. Conclusion: Many physicochemical exposure factors affect headache/eyestrain symptoms among construction workers, especially indoor construction workers, suggesting a deficiency in occupational hygiene and health environments at indoor construction worksites.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.96-104
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• 2012

The objective of this study is to compare on the occupational injury rate and mortality rate of all workers and foreign workers. By doing so, this study seeks to find out the improvements necessary to secure the basic safety net for foreign workers, as well as to find out the legal and institutional measures in place to make timely political intervention and protect the health of foreign workers. The status of foreign workers in Korea, their employment trends by industries, and occupational accident types and scales of Korean and foreign workers were analyzed from 2005 to 2009. Each year, foreign workers' occupational injury rate was much lower than Korea's overall occupational injury rate. But when analyzed by industry, occupational injury rate (death rate per 10,000 workers) of manufacturing industry was about 2 to 5 times higher than the overall occupational injury rate in Korea. Also, construction industry showed 3 to 16 times higher rate than the rate of overall industries. Although the death rate per 10,000 workers showed a declining yearly trend, foreign workers' occupational injury rate has the tendency to increase gradually. In particular, occupational injury rates and death rates per 10,000 workers were considerably high in the manufacturing and construction industries.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.56-63
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• 2020

The government has established various policies focusing on accident prevention to reduce the accident rate in the construction industry, but the effect is still insignificant. These results allude that there are still many problems in terms of usability. Although construction safety accidents usually have characteristics that occur during construction, the laws and systems should include the pre-construction cycle (plan/order - design - construction business management- construction) to eliminate risk factors in advance. The purpose of this study is to analyze the performance evaluation of the construction safety system before construction rather than during construction. In the pre-construction phase (plan/ order-design-constuction business management), we intend to investigate and analyze measures to prevent safety accidents and identify a system that lacks the ability to implement. Specifically, we analyzed what to focus on as precautionary measures in the planning, ordering, designing, and supervising. To improve them, we made a questionnaire based on the role related to construction safety for each subject, and seek implications for lack of performance through interviews. Based on the results, some ways to improve the safety system were proposed.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.24-31
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• 2020

The duty of construction clients in WSH (Workplace Safety and Health) system was included in the amendment of Occupational Safety and Health Act (enforced on 16 January 2020), which was estimated the shift of paradigm in the prevention of construction accidents. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the analysis results of construction clients' role in the construction project, which were performed by authors over the recent years in order to impose the duty on construction clients, and to suggest their role according the plan, design, and construction stage. Utilizing the systematic literature review process based on Meta analysis, the related papers were selected. For the selected papers, related domestic and foreign regulations, and other prominent report, the construction clients' role was analyzed by reflecting the experts' advice. Results show that the construction clients should control the designer and contractor for implementing the WHS system during the whole process of the construction project. They should supply sufficient source and time to ensure the workers' safety. In the plan stage, the key role of construction clients is to identify intensively controlled hazard and risk reduction plan and to transfer the results. In the design stage, their key role is to select the designer with the capacity in WSH and to assist the designer for the safety design. The main key role of construction clients in the costruction stage is to select the contractor with specialty in WSH including a contract reflecting the WSH requirement and to check implementation of WSH plan, WSH cost, WSH education, and accident report. In addition, it is thought that the construction clients' participations in the site WSH activity and adjustment of safety and health problem among contractors can be effect in the prevention of construction accidents.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.79-84
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• 2013

According to the statistics of occupational accidents in 2009, the scaffolds and work platforms were main objects causing fall accidents in construction sites. But many workers install and use the work platforms on the mobile scaffolding without considering about safety standards. We had conducted a nationwide survey about how workers obey safety standards for the work platforms of the mobile scaffolding. As the result of a survey, no one follow a gap standard between materials of work platforms and installation of toe board. And it is a low proportion that comply with the install of safety guard rails and the use of stoppers. This is lack of consciousness for the safety certification and regulations. For safe use a mobile scaffolding, It is needed to educate a manager on the safety standards and to develop a product to install and dismantle easily.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.20 no.12
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• pp.176-181
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• 2019

According to the 2017 Industrial Accident Analysis by Age, 71.8 % of construction disaster victims and 74.9 % of the deaths were workers aged 50 years or older, highlighting the seriousness of industrial accidents among aged construction workers. In this study, 303 construction workers aged 50 or older and 178 safety managers were surveyed on ways to improve the basic occupational safety and health education for senior workers in the construction industry. According to a comparison of the safety awareness for safety education by senior workers and safety managers, the safety manager showed a higher sense of safety for education than elderly workers. Regarding the remuneration education for those who had received basic occupational safety and health education in the construction industry, 69.9 percent said that regular remuneration education was needed, and 69.9 percent of them said that basic occupational safety and health repair education in the construction industry was needed every three years after the completion of education. This study is intended to present improvement plans for repair education for those who have completed basic occupational safety and health training in the construction industry.

• International Journal of Safety
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.21-29
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• 2010

When a new member of a scaffold is developed, it is necessary to follow the standard. Therefore, all scaffolds will assume the same structure. The aim of this study was to establish a new method for evaluating scaffold performance. In the present study, a buckling analysis of prefabricated scaffolds was executed, using the shear rigidity of the vertical and the horizontal frames as parameters. From the results, an equation is proposed for evaluating the strength of prefabricated scaffolds.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.59-66
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• 2015

This study investigated the recognition difference among construction work participants for the assignment of the safety and health management responsibility to a client by survey. Recently, there were some studies for the client's responsibility and duty and they suggested the client-initiative safety and health management system in order to prevent construction accidents. To supplement the existed studies, this study surveyed various construction participants such as clients, safety managers, construction managers, supervisors, others. The clients and construction managers considered the contractor as most important person to prevent construction accidents, but the safety managers and supervisors considered the client. For the opinion that the assignment of the safety and health management duty to a client is helpful, safety managers were agreed with the most. However, the clients showed the lowest agreement. The reasons that the negative opinion for the assignment of client's the safety and health management were different between clients and other construction parties. Since, clients showed large difference to other construction participants for the recognition of works' safety and health, the education about the works' safety and health management should be continuously performed for clients to have correct recognition for works' safety and health.