Health Education is very important not only in school or community fields but also in industrial fields. And health education is most fundamental and enthusiastic area in industrial health.
The purpose of this study was to analyze the workers’ health education needs and the factors which could affect them.
The subjects for this study was 855 workers selected from 57 factories in Jnchon.
The results were as follows:
1. For demographic variables, sex, age, educational level, and income of the workers were investigated. Most of the workers were males (80.2%). Of the respondents, 30?39 years old were 41.3%. Approximately 62% of the workers were high school graduates. In additions, those who reported they earned 500,000-800,000 won monthly were 41.9%
2. Behavioral characteristics of the workers investigated in this study included smoking, drinking and physical activities. Of the respondents, 55.9% were smoking cigarettes, and 26.8% of the workers reported they drank alcohol once or twice a week. The workers who were taking any form of exercise regularly were 31.6%.
3. Occupational characteristics of the workers included working period working hours a day, medical examination, and so on. About 37.6% of the workers had worked 1 - 5 years and 53. 6% of the respondents were working less than 8 hours a day. More than half of the workers in this study were taking special medical examination(59.3%) and 59.6% of the respondents were working at the production line in the factories. And most of the respondents (69.0%) were mere members of the staffs.
4. For perceived health status of the respondents, 41.1% answered they were healthy. And for the level of health status, health grade 20.4% of the workers were unhealthy.
5. Health education areas the workers in this study wanted to learn were as follows:1) Mental health 2) Worksite environment 3) Safety control 4) Disease contol.
6. Those who reported having ever received health education in the factories were 20.9%.
7. Women had more health education needs in personal health care, disease control and family health areas than men.
Each age group had different health education needs in all health areas and the differences were significant statistically.
8. The workers who had received special medical examination had more health education needs in worksite environment, safety control, and disease control areas than those who had received general medical examination. The lower the satisfaction of the work and the working environment was, the higher the health education needs of worksite environment area were.
9. For the levels of health status healthy workers were more likely than unhealthy workers to have health education needs in all health areas.
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