Identifying Risk Factors and Evaluating Occupational Safety in South Korean Forestry Sector

The forestry industry poses a higher risk of occupational accidents than other sectors, and understanding the occurrence and characteristics of injuries and fatalities is crucial for improving the safety and health of workers and establishing future strategies. In South Korea, although occupational...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Forests 2023-04, Vol.14 (4), p.851
Main Authors: Cho, Min-Jae, Choi, Yun-Sung, Lee, Eunjai
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accidents
Age groups
Amputation
Employees
Evaluation
Fatalities
Forest harvesting
Forestry
Forests and forestry
Harvest
Injuries
Injury analysis
Methods
Mortality
Occupational accidents
Occupational health
Occupational health and safety
Occupational safety
Physiology
Risk assessment
Risk factors
Safety
Safety and security measures
Silviculture
Timber
Trends
Workers
Working conditions
Working hours
Workloads
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Summary:The forestry industry poses a higher risk of occupational accidents than other sectors, and understanding the occurrence and characteristics of injuries and fatalities is crucial for improving the safety and health of workers and establishing future strategies. In South Korea, although occupational injuries have declined since 2010, the number of occupational accidents in forestry remains higher than that in other sectors. Occupational injuries and fatalities present considerable challenges, and thus, our objective was to analyze and compare forestry accidents between 2010 and 2020. The results indicate that the highest average number of injuries occurred among workers older than 51 years and those with less than 6 months of experience. Timber harvesting and silviculture are among the most dangerous operations in forestry. Based on the analyzed dataset, amputation and laceration injuries, as well as slip and trip injuries, were the most common, accounting for 29.2% and 22.3% of total annual occupational accidents, respectively. These results may be explained by the labor-intensive, steep terrain operations in forestry. Our findings represent an essential resource for improving worker safety and health.
ISSN:1999-4907
1999-4907
DOI:10.3390/f14040851