Health care strategy for ensuring work ability in an aging Korea

The rapid aging trend in South Korea will cause a growing shortage of labor and decreasing quality of the labor force. The purpose of this commentary is to recommend a health care strategy to maintain and promote the work ability of employees in an aging Korea. Strategies to promote the work ability require the collaboration of governmental agencies at the central and local levels. First, the common goal should be the reinforcement of follow-up measure in general medical examinations and the promotion of healthy lifestyles for workers. Second, collaborating activities should be performed among the Worker’s Health Center, the Health Promotion Center, and community health centers. In conclusion, health care strategies for ensuring the work ability in an aging Korea require the collaboration of governmental agencies at the central and local levels.

The recognition about the institution of occupational health management in the plating industry / 대한산업의학회지

No abstract available.

A Study on the Psychological Symptoms of Hospitalized Pneumoconiosis Patients: Comparison with pneumoconiosis Examinees, Coal Miners, and Other Manual Workers / 대한산업의학회지

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of hospitalization and diagnosis of disease on the mental health of coal workers' pneumoconiosis patient. The study subjects were composed of four groups for comparison; hospitalized coal workers' pneumoconiosis, healthy coal miners, and railroad workers employed by government. About a hundred of respondents in each group were sampled by random. Mental health data were collected by symptom distress checklist 90 (SCL-90), and other characteristics were collected by interview with questionnaire administered trained interviewers in each respondents. Mental health dimension was classified into 9 dimensions; somatization, obsessive-compulsiveness, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, hostality, phobic anxiety, paranoid, psychosis. And as total index, global severity index, positive symptoms total, positive symptom distress index were also computed. As a result there is difference of mean score of 9 symptom dimensions among four groups. The mean score of the examinees of depth diagnosis of the impressed coal workers' pneumoconiosis is the highest score in all 9 symptom dimensions. However in the hospitalized coal workers' pneumoconiosis scores of somatization, depression, anxiety, and phobic anxiety were still higher than that of healthy coal miners. And other symptom dimensions were not different from that of healthy coal miners.

A Study on Occupational History of Coal Workers' Pneumoconiosis / 예방의학회지

The purpose of this study is to analyze occupational history of coal miners with pnemoconiosis. In this study, occupational chracteristics of 49 coal miners with pneumoconiosis were compared with those of 45 coal miners without pneumoconiosis but in similar age category (43-52 years of age) based on interview survey. Various indices on occupational characteristics were developed for the following areas: duration of employment, perception of working condition, working density, dust concentration, temperature, humidity, and experience of respirator wearings. Perception of working condition were measured in 5 points scales but experiences of respirator wearing was measured in 3 points scale. Each index was multiplied by duration of employment. From the analysis, only the experience of respirator wearing showed statistically significant difference between the two groups. Therefore, respirator wearing seemed to be effective in reducing occurrence of pneumoconiosis.