Annals of Occupational and Environmental Medicine

Cohort Profile (includes Data Profiles)

Occupational and Environmental Health Screening Cohort of Yangsan Korea (OEC-YK): 2012–2023: Dongmug Kang, Eun-Soo Lee, Se-Yeong Kim, Youngki Kim, Youn Hyang Lee, Yoon-Ji Kim; Ann Occup Environ Med 2025;e32. Published online September 5, 2025; DOI: https://doi.org/10.35371/aoem.2025.37.e32 [Accepted]

Abstract PDF: The Occupational and Environmental Health Screening Cohort of Yangsan Korea (OEC-YK) was established to monitor long-term health outcomes in workers and environmental high-risk citizens through systematic periodic health examinations. The cohort integrates 623,402 examination instances from 105,768 participants at Pusan National University Yangsan Hospital (2012–2023), encompassing general health checkups, occupational exposure surveillance, cancer screenings, and others including asbestos-related surveillance. Examination types included general health examination (32.4%), cancer screening (20.6%), special health examination (16.2%), night-shift work examination (16.0%), chronic disease screening (4.8%), pre-placement examinations (2.1%), and asbestos-related surveillance (3.6%). At baseline, 59.0% were male and 75.5% were aged between 20 and 59 years. Follow-up rates reached 35.0% at 1 year, 31.9% at 2 years, and 3.2% at 11 years. Notably, the inclusion of systematic asbestos examinations, combined with a national asbestos job exposure matrix, allows detailed study of long-latency occupational diseases. This large-scale longitudinal dataset supports exposure-disease linkage analysis, job-exposure integration, and time-series modeling of worker health trajectories in Korea.

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Review

Review of carcinogenicity of asbestos and proposal of approval standards of an occupational cancer caused by asbestos in Korea: Sanghyuk Im, Kan-woo Youn, Donghee Shin, Myeoung-jun Lee, Sang-Jun Choi; Ann Occup Environ Med 2015;27:34. Published online December 30, 2015; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s40557-015-0080-1

Carcinogenicity of asbestos has been well established for decades and it has similar approval standards in most advanced countries based on a number of studies and international meetings. However, Korea has been lagging behind such international standards. In this study, we proposed the approval standards of an occupational cancer due to asbestos through intensive review on the Helsinki Criteria, post-Helsinki studies, job exposure matrix (JEM) based on the analysis of domestic reports and recognized occupational lung cancer cases in Korea. The main contents of proposed approval standards are as follows; ① In recognizing an asbestos-induced lung cancer, diagnosis of asbestosis should be based on CT. In addition, initial findings of asbestosis on CT should be considered. ② High Exposure industries and occupations to asbestos should be also taken into account in Korea ③ An expert’s determination is warranted in case of a worker who has been concurrently exposed to other carcinogens, even if the asbestos exposure duration is less than 10 years. ④ Determination of a larynx cancer due to asbestos exposure has the same approval standards with an asbestos-induced lung cancer. However, for an ovarian cancer, an expert’s judgment is necessary even if asbestosis, pleural plaque or pleural thickening and high concentration asbestos exposure are confirmed. ⑤ Cigarette smoking status or the extent should not affect determination of an occupational cancer caused by asbestos as smoking and asbestos have a synergistic effect in causing a lung cancer and they are involved in carcinogenesis in a complicated manner.

Citations

Citations to this article as recorded by

Assessing trends and burden of occupational exposure to asbestos in the United States: a comprehensive analysis from 1990 to 2019
Xujun Li, Xin Su, Li Wei, Junhang Zhang, Donglei Shi, Zhaojun Wang
BMC Public Health.2024;[Epub] CrossRef
A case of laryngeal cancer induced by exposure to asbestos in a construction site supervisor
Sooyong Roh, Soyong Park, Gyeong Tae, Jaechul Song
Annals of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.2016;[Epub] CrossRef

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