2000 Police Officers Injured Annually... Health Guidelines to Be Established

Over the Past 5 Years, Approximately 8,600 Industrial Accident Cases
Safety Accidents Account for 46%, the Highest
Including Mental Health, Service Contracts Issued

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Gwan-joo] The police are preparing a 'Occupational Health Guideline.'

According to the police on the 19th, the National Police Agency recently commissioned a research project titled 'Research on Occupational Health Guidelines for Police Officers' and has begun full-scale research. Until now, only fragmented studies measuring specific health conditions such as depression and sleep disorders among police officers have been conducted, but systematic research on the correlation between working environment and health has not been carried out.

Through this research, the police plan to identify hazardous environmental factors affecting police officers' health by investigating shift work types and working environments by job type, and standardize these factors. In particular, the guideline will include not only physical effects but also mental health impairments. They aim to find improvement measures such as special health examination items and intervals to detect and prevent health risks early, and derive the optimal working form to secure police officers' health rights.

In the past five years (2016?2020), 8,669 police officers were injured on duty. The numbers increased annually from 1,630 in 2017, 1,831 in 2018, to 2,075 in 2019, but decreased to 1,266 last year as field activities declined due to the spread of COVID-19. From January to April this year, 50 police officers were reported injured on duty.

The most common cause of police officers' work-related injuries was safety accidents with 4,012 cases (46.3%). This was followed by assaults by suspects with 2,493 cases (28.7%), traffic accidents with 1,929 cases (22.3%), and illnesses with 235 cases (2.7%). Due to the nature of the work system, night and shift work are unavoidable, and overnight tense duty, roadside duty, confrontations with suspects, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) caused by incidents and accidents are identified as major factors threatening police officers' health. A police official explained, "We will identify health hazard factors by police department and reflect them in future police health support policies, including restructuring the police officers' health examination system."

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