Historical Review and Perspectives on OH in Korea

Along with rapid industrial development begun by the 1st 5-yr Socioeconomic Development Plan in 1962, victims of the industrial accidents and occupational diseases were increased. There were many outbreaks of intoxicated-cases of the workers exposed to organic solvents or heavy metals. Many of the CS2 intoxicated victims and their colleagues had demonstration parades in Seoul around 1990. Serious outbreak of carbon disulfide intoxication in Korea became an object of big public concern, but also served as a momentum of development of OH in several aspects. With entering 21st century, cases of occupational cancers were rapidly increased. Compensated cases of work-related musculoskeletal disorders, cerebro-, and cardio-vascular diseases exceeded thousand each a yr. New cases of occupational diseases, mostly caused by chemicals, such as, arsine, silver, epichlorhydrin, emerged recently. Fatal cases of acute organic solvent intoxications, and of asphyxias caused by methane, or hydrogen sulfide, are reported almost every year. Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance Act covers every workers employed in industries sized 1 or more workers, and every immigrant workers.  More than 14,600 industries are required by law to employ full-time occupational health managers (OHMs) in 2010. Group Occupational Health Service (GOHS) System was introduced by law in the early 1990’s to improve OH services to underserved workers employed in SSIs and to mitigate employers of economic burden. More than 16,000 industries used GOHS System instead of hiring their own OHMs in 2011. Only 136 factory doctors are employed as full-time OHMs.  Recently, workers’ health promotion and, improvement of health examination of the workers exposed to harmful agents, were suggested for the future OH policies by the experts.  Nowadays, interest in OH service for the workers engaged in farm and forestry, governmental offices, and for the group of vulnerable workers and of self-employed workers has been gradually increased.