The Effect of Socio-Economic Factors on Occupational Injuries in Korea: A Time Series Analysis

Bang, Ye Won; Im, Hyoung June; Kwon, Young Jun; Cho, Seong Sik; Lee, Tae Kyung; Yoon, In Ki; Ju, Young Su

Abstract

OBJECTIVES
We performed a time series analysis in order to identify the relationship between the occupational injury rate and socio-economic factors, and through this predict the occupational injury occurrence rate.
METHODS
We reviewed 168 sets of monthly data. For the statistical analysis, we used the economic index data provided by Statics Korea and the occupational injury index provided by the Workers' Compensation & Welfare Service gathered from 1994 to 2007. We performed a correlation analysis to find relationship between the occupation injury rate and economic factors. Using the correlation analysis result, we used time series analysis for the data in order to find out the association between occupational injuries and socio-economic indicators. We performed time series analysis to find out association occupation injury rate with socio-economic factors. In addition we ran a prediction occupational injury rate for 2008 and compared the result to the actual value.
RESULTS
The factors associated with occupational injuries were the daily worker index (b=0.394, p<0.0001), the mechanical index (b=-0.023, p=0.0043), the manufacturing operation index (b=0.152, p<0.0001), the workers compensation coverage expansion (b=1.189, p=0.015), the IMF index (b=-2.05, p<0.0001), and the after IMF index (b=-1.565, p=0.01). The daily worker index, manufacturing operation index, and workers compensation coverage expansion had an effect that increased the occupational injury rate. Conversely, the mechanical index and IMF variable tended to decrease the occupational injury rate.
CONCLUSIONS
This study suggests that the daily worker index, manufacturing operation index, workers compensation coverage expansion, and IMF variables are related factors in regards to occupational injury.