Dataset Information

Overwork-related disorders and recent improvement of national policy in South Korea.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

Recently, overwork-related disorders have become a major public health concern in Korea. This study investigated the current trends of working hours, causes of death in the working population, and compensation rates.

Methods

We reviewed the current trends of working hours, cause of death statistics in the working population, industrial accident compensation insurance (IACI) statistics, issues of compensation and prevention of work-related cerebro-cardio vascular diseases (CCVDs), mental disorders, and suicide.

Results

Although weekly working hours and the proportion of long working days have decreased, workers in small companies with fewer than five employees and those in the service sector continue to work long hours. The age standardized mortality due to CCVD and suicide was highest among those with managerial roles. In total, 589 CCVD cases and 104 mental disorder or suicide cases were compensated as occupational diseases in 2017. Between 2016 and 2017, 61% of 59 compensated suicides were related to overwork, specifically: long working hours, increased responsibility, or increased workload. The Korean government has introduced various policies to reduce working hours and to increase compensation approval rate for overwork-related CCVDs. Stakeholders have called for the introduction of independent laws to prevent overwork-related disorders, change organizational culture, and address the blind spots of the IACI Act and Labor Standard Act.

Conclusions

Prevention and compensation policies have improved working conditions in Korea, but there remains much to be done. This review significantly contributes to the understanding of the overall policies and research to prevent overwork-related disorders in Korea.

SUBMITTER: Kim I

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6620743 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Overwork-related disorders and recent improvement of national policy in South Korea.

Kim Inah I Koo Min Ji MJ Lee Hye-Eun HE Won Yong Lim YL Song Jaechul J

Journal of occupational health 20190425 4

<h4>Objectives</h4>Recently, overwork-related disorders have become a major public health concern in Korea. This study investigated the current trends of working hours, causes of death in the working population, and compensation rates.<h4>Methods</h4>We reviewed the current trends of working hours, cause of death statistics in the working population, industrial accident compensation insurance (IACI) statistics, issues of compensation and prevention of work-related cerebro-cardio vascular disease ...[more]

PMID: 31025505

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Project description:BackgroundThe rapid growth of prescription drug expenditures is a major problem in South Korea. Accordingly, the South Korean government introduced a positive listing system in 2006. They also adopted various price reduction policies. Nevertheless, the total expenditure for lipid-lowering drugs have steadily increased throughout South Korea. The present study explores the factors that have influenced the increased expenditures of lipid-lowering drugs with a particular focus on the effects of statins in this process.MethodsThis paper investigates the National Health Insurance claims data for prescribed lipid-lowering drugs collected between January 1, 2005 and December 31, 2009. We specifically focused on statins and assessed the yearly variation of statin expenditure by calculating the increased rate of paired pharmaceutical expenditures over a 2 year period. Our study classified statins into three categories: new entrants, core medicines and exiting medicines. For core medicines, we further examined influencing factors such as price, amount of drugs consumed by volume, and prescription changes (substitutes for other drug).ResultsStatin expenditure showed an average annual increase of 25.7% between 2005 and 2009. Among the different statins, the expenditure of atorvastatin showed a 36.6% annual increase rate, which was the most dramatic among all statins. Also we divided expenditure for core medicines by the price factor, volume factor, and prescription change. The result showed that annual weighted average prices of individual drug decreased each year, which clearly showed that price influenced statin expenditure in a negative direction. The use of generic drugs containing the same active ingredient as name-brand drugs increased and negatively affected statin expenditure (Generic Mix effect). However, the use of relatively expensive ingredients within statin increase, Ingredient Mix effect contributed to increased statin expenditure (Ingredient Mix effect). In particular, the volume effect was found to be critical for increasing statin expenditure as the amount of statin consumed increased steadily throughout the study period.ConclusionsThe recent rapid increase in statin expenditure can largely be attributed to an increase in consumption volume. In order to check drug expenditures effectively in our current situation, in which chronic diseases remain steadily on the rise, it is necessary to not only have supply-side initiatives such as price reduction, but also demand-side initiatives that could control drug consumption volume, for example: educational programs for rational prescription, generic drug promotional policies, and policies providing prescription targets.

Dataset Information

Overwork-related disorders and recent improvement of national policy in South Korea.

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Publications

Overwork-related disorders and recent improvement of national policy in South Korea.

Similar Datasets

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