• Safety and Health at Work
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• 제14권4호
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• pp.347-357
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• 2023

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic turned biological hazards in the working environment into a global concern. This systematized review of published reviews aimed to provide a comprehensive overview of the specific jobs and categories of workers exposed to biological hazards with the related prevention. Methods: We extracted reviews published in English and French in PubMed, Embase, and Web of Science. Two authors, working independently, subsequently screened the potentially relevant titles and abstracts recovered (step 1) and then examined relevant full texts (step 2). Disagreements were resolved by consensus. We built tables summarizing populations of exposed workers, types of hazards, types of outcomes (types of health issues, means of prevention), and routes of transmission. Results: Of 1426 studies initially identified, 79 studies by authors from every continent were selected, mostly published after 2010 (n = 63, 79.7%). About half of the reviews dealt with infectious hazards alone (n = 38, 48.1%). The industrial sectors identified involved healthcare alone (n = 16), laboratories (n = 10), agriculture (including the animal, vegetable, and grain sectors, n = 32), waste (n = 10), in addition of 11 studies without specific sectors. The results also highlighted a range of hazards (infectious and noninfectious agents, endotoxins, bioaerosols, organic dust, and emerging agents). Conclusion: This systematized overview allowed to list the populations of workers exposed to biological hazards and underlined how prevention measures in the healthcare and laboratory sectors were usually well defined and controlled, although this was not the case in the agriculture and waste sectors. Further studies are necessary to quantify these risks and implement prevention measures that can be applied in every country.

• 한국산학기술학회논문지
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• 제22권3호
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• pp.511-519
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• 2021

본 연구는 수도권 지역의 자활프로그램 참가 근로자들의 우울 수준과 구강 건강이 삶의 질에 미치는 영향에 대하여 살펴보고자 한다. 연구 방법은 자활 근로자 569명을 대상으로 2020년 7월 26일부터 9월 5일까지 설문 조사를 시행하였다. 조사항목으로는 우울 수준, 잇몸 지수, 주관적 구강 증상, 구강 건강 삶의 질을 조사하였으며, 연구 결과 다음과 같다. 전신질환이 있는 근로자에서 우울 수준, 잇몸 지수, 구강 증상, 삶의 질 모두 부정적으로 나타났다. 우울 수준이 높은 집단은 잇몸 건강, 구강 증상, 구강 건강 삶의 질 모두 부정적으로 높게 나타났으며, 통계적으로 유의한 차이를 나타냈다. 또한 우울은 잇몸 건강, 구강 증상, 구강 건강 삶의 질과 부적 상관성을 나타냈다. 우울, 잇몸 지수와 구강 증상은 구강 건강 삶의 질에 부정적인 영향을 미치는 요인으로 나타났으며 특히 구강 증상이 구강건강 삶의 질에 가장 큰 영향력을 나타냈다. 자활근로자는 구강 건강에 취약하므로 구강건강에 대한 올바른 인식과 관리를 위한 구강보건교육이 필요하며 계속구강건강관리가 이루어질 수 있도록 사회취약계층을 위한 구강보건정책 개선이 필요하다.

• 한국환경보건학회지
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• 제34권4호
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• pp.279-284
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• 2008

This paper aims to provide basic data for work environment control, prevention of worker exposure to asbestos and improvement of air quality to protect workers ‘health after measuring the level of airborne asbestos and workers' exposure in a shipbuilding repair businesses. For this study, a total of 27 samples were collected from 27 workers who had been exposed to asbestos during engine, piping, boiler and other manufacturing processes in 'A' Shipbuilding Repair Company in Gyeongnam. This research was conducted from Oct. 1 to 30, 2007 and had the following results: The target group (27 workers) consisted of all men with an average age of 35.9 years and 6.6 years of work on average. Among them, fifteen 15 (55.6%) were smokers. In terms of their duties at work, there were 12 plumbing repair engineers (44.4%), 8 boiler repair engineers (29.6%) and 7 engine engineers (25.9%). The geometric mean concentration of airborne asbestos was 0.004 f/cc. A total of 4 samples exceeded the exposure limit. In particular, three exceeded the legal limit by more than double, which means that some workers have been highly exposed to asbestos. In terms of the concentration of asbestos fibres by work process, plumbing repair was the highest (0.0071 f/cc($0.001{\sim}0.57\;f/cc$)) while boiler was the lowest (0.0015 f/cc($0.001{\sim}0.007\;f/cc$)). Based on this study, proper action needs to be taken as soon as possible to protect workers from the threat of asbestos.

• Fibers and Polymers
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• 제4권2호
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• pp.54-58
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• 2003

Previous research on healthcare workers’ protection has concentrated on liquid barrier protection by providing impermeable personal articles such as latex gloves. This property is of high importance but since most blood-borne pathogen transmissions in the healthcare industry are caused by needle-stick injuries, protection from sharp invasive instruments should also be of high concern. And since latex and alike provide no protection against needle-stick injuries, new protective systems need to be developed and evaluated. This part of the study provides a review regarding the current practice of protection and the serious problems that arise from needle-flick injuries. Additionally, the development of new protective system is described. In part II of the study, evaluation of the new system will be provided.

• 보건의료산업학회지
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• 제9권3호
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• pp.13-30
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• 2015

Objectives : The aim of this study was to investigate changes in job satisfaction of hospital workers according to different occupations at a university hospital in Seoul. Methods : A survey questionnaire was sent out to people working in a University Hospital in Seoul. Four hundred questionnaires were included in the final analysis. Results : The results of this study are as follows. Sense of accomplishment was a significant job satisfaction factor resulting in a high level of satisfaction. Work environment, compensation and job stability also affected job satisfaction; however, satisfaction levels appeared to be relatively low. Conclusions : When looking at the most important factors among the influencing factors that the members of the organization thought were most important for job satisfaction, the results showed that achievement, work environment, job stability and compensation were important factors.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• 제79권4호
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• pp.234-240
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• 2016

Transmission of tuberculosis (TB) is a recognized risk to patients and healthcare workers in healthcare settings. The literature review suggests that implementation of combination control measures reduces the risk of TB transmission. Guidelines suggest a three-level hierarchy of controls including administrative, environmental, and respiratory protection. Among environmental controls, installation of ventilation systems is a priority because ventilation reduces the number of infectious particles in the air. Natural ventilation is cost-effective but depends on climatic conditions. Supplemented intervention such as air-cleaning methods including high efficiency particulate air filtration and ultraviolet germicidal irradiation should be considered in areas where adequate ventilation is difficult to achieve. Personal protective equipment including particulate respirators provides additional benefit when administrative and environmental controls cannot assure protection.

• 의료ㆍ복지 건축 : 한국의료복지건축학회 논문집
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• 제14권2호
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• pp.3-14
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• 2008

The rehabilitation for the workplace accident victims is basically aimed to get them back to their working place through the secondary care processes which have some more special and more professional rehabilitation than any others, after the primary treatments like operation in an acute hospital since the accident. They need more concentrative rehabilitation efforts according to classified injury types during the period of acute, sub-acute and convalescent. This study is for the partial research of rehabilitation hospital for workers' accident victims and presents design data which can be used for the appropriate area calculation and spatial composition. Drawing documents analysis, interviews, observation were used to examine the condition of existing rehabilitation hospitals.

• 의료ㆍ복지 건축 : 한국의료복지건축학회 논문집
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• 제8권1호
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• pp.29-36
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• 2002

From the latter half of 20's century, the numbers of dental service workers and dental facilities are noticeably increased and dental patients want the higher-classed and specialized dental service. For the increased facilities and user's needs at dental college hospital, the present condition of dentistry, special features and the field study at dental college hospital are surveyed for this study. The purpose of this study is to provide a architectural planning data on the dental college hospital for keeping up with the development of dentistry.

• Perspectives in Nursing Science
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• 제6권1호
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• pp.1-20
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• 2009

This research examines, based on nursing's point of view, the current status and problems of the healthcare-related multi-cultural policy which is one of the major issues of contemporary Korea. Today, Korean society is facing a drastic increase of migrant workers and marriage for migration in Korea that leads to the transition to multiculturalism. Each field of society is providing prevalent supports to solve the problems of multicultural families and to promote adoption to Korean society. The activities and researches for multicultural families in nursing area were found and analyzed. 11 researches and 2 books were published. Among these 13 publications, 10 were on the marriage with immigrant women. 8 researches out of 11 (72.7%) were defined as the descriptive surveys, and 3 researches (27.3%) were defined as quasi-experimental studies. Although Korea Nurses Association (KNA) led various activities, more researches and activities by nurses and nursing scholars are required to contribute in improving the health of multicultural families.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• 제11권4호
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• pp.533-536
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• 2020

Strengthening of the health system is a safety imperative, especially in a crisis as caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. While there is a need for enhancing the number and skill sets of the public health professionals, especially the frontline workers, it will be prudent to use the digital health technologies, including artificial intelligence, in enhancing the capacity of the healthcare professional education and delivery. However, it has to be ensured that an ethical and safe approach is adopted to develop and use digital health technology and, ethically appropriate training is imparted, to enhance the capacity of the human resources for health, leading to an overall health system strengthening.