title: Physical agents and occupational disease compensation: noise, vibration, radiation, and other physical agents.
abstract: The context of specific criteria for the recognition of occupational diseases (ODs) due to physical agents in the Enforcement Decree of the Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance Act (ED-IACIA) and the Labor Standard Act (LSA) does not describe definite disease along with the agents but listed symptoms or obscure clinical conditions. Moreover, the needs for an amendment of these Acts have recently attracted renewed interest. To establish agreed criteria for compensable ODs due to physical agents, we reviewed the criteria for recognizing ODs on the basis of International Labor Organization (ILO) documents and European Union (EU) guideline. After providing a brief review of the history of OD outbreaks due to physical exposure in South Korea and the responses to them, we describe the basis for the recent amendments to the IACI Act and LSA and assess their appropriateness. On the basis of these findings, this study could be helpful for determining and compensating process of ODs. However, further work is required to ascertain the scientific relationship between diseases caused by physical agents and the exposure criteria.
authors.affiliation: Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, College of Medicine, University of Ulsan, Ulsan, Korea.
authors.forename: Jiho
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-8027-835X
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, College of Medicine, Koshin University, Busan, Korea.
authors.forename: Jungwon
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kim
mesh_terms: D000062:Accidents, Occupational; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009622:Noise / Q000009:adverse effects*; D009784:Occupational Diseases / Q000191:economics*; D016273:Occupational Exposure / Q000009:adverse effects; D011832:Radiation Injuries / Q000191:economics*; D056910:Republic of Korea; D014732:Vibration / Q000009:adverse effects*; D014942:Workers' Compensation / Q000191:economics*
keywords: Legislation; Occupational Disease; Physical Agents; Recognition Criteria; Workers' Compensation