86% of school lunch cooks with lung cancer recognized as work-related accidents in South Korea

In South Korea, a school cafeteria cook contracted lung cancer due to cooking fumes generated during high-temperature cooking, and the cancer was classified as an industrial accident.
It has been revealed that a total of 134 cases have been recognized as "work-related accidents" since 2021, when the first cases were recognized as "work-related accidents." "Cooking fumes" are harmful substances that are often generated during cooking using high-temperature oil.
According to the "Current Status of Lung Cancer Workers in School Cafeterias" obtained by the Korean newspaper Herald Business from the Korea Labor Welfare Service on the 13th, a total of 156 cases of lung cancer work-related injuries were reported from 2021 to April of this year.
Of the applications for work-related compensation, 134 were approved. In light of this situation, local governments have begun to take steps to improve the working environment for school lunch cooks.
On the 1st of this month, the Gyeonggi Province Office of Education began improving ventilation in school kitchens to improve the working environment of school lunch cooks.
The decision was made to install a purification system with pollutant intake and exhaust functions and to build a system that would measure and automatically control the concentration of pollutants in real time.