Incidence rates of injury, musculoskeletal, skin, pulmonary and chronic diseases among construction workers by classification of occupations in South Korea: a 1,027 subject-based cohort of the Korean Construction Worker's Cohort (KCWC)

Seungho Lee; Yoon-Ji Kim; Youngki Kim; Dongmug Kang; Seung Chan Kim; Se-Yeong Kim

doi:10.35371/aoem.2023.35.e26

Incidence rates of injury, musculoskeletal, skin, pulmonary and chronic diseases among construction workers by classification of occupations in South Korea: a 1,027 subject-based cohort of the Korean Construction Worker's Cohort (KCWC)

Ann Occup Environ Med. 2023 Jul 24:35:e26. doi: 10.35371/aoem.2023.35.e26. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Seungho Lee¹, Yoon-Ji Kim², Youngki Kim^{1

2}, Dongmug Kang^{1

2}, Seung Chan Kim³, Se-Yeong Kim^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Pusan National University Yangsan Hospital, Yangsan, Korea.
² Department of Preventive, and Occupational & Environmental Medicine, School of Medicine, Pusan National University, Yangsan, Korea.
³ Department of Biostatistics Cooperation Center, Gyeongsang National University Hospital, Jinju, Korea.

Abstract

Background: The objective of this study is to investigate the differences in incidence rates of targeted diseases by classification of occupations among construction workers in Korea.

Methods: In a subject-based cohort of the Korean Construction Worker's Cohort, we surveyed a total of 1,027 construction workers. As occupational exposure, the classification of occupations was developed using two axes: construction business and job type. To analyze disease incidence, we linked survey data with National Health Insurance Service data. Eleven target disease categories with high prevalence or estimated work-relatedness among construction workers were evaluated in our study. The average incidence rates were calculated as cases per 1,000 person-years (PY).

Results: Injury, poisoning, and certain other consequences of external causes had the highest incidence rate of 344.08 per 1,000 PY, followed by disease of the musculoskeletal system and connective tissue for 208.64 and diseases of the skin and subcutaneous tissue for 197.87 in our cohort. We especially found that chronic obstructive pulmonary disease was more common in construction painters, civil engineering welders, and civil engineering frame mold carpenters, asthma in construction painters, landscape, and construction water proofers, interstitial lung diseases in construction water proofers.

Conclusions: This is the first study to systematically classify complex construction occupations in order to analyze occupational diseases in Korean construction workers. There were differences in disease incidences among construction workers based on the classification of occupations. It is necessary to develop customized occupational safety and health policies for high-risk occupations for each disease in the construction industry.

Keywords: Classification of occupations; Incidence rates; Korean Construction Worker’s Cohort (KCWC); Occupational diseases; Subject-based cohort.