Analysis and Suggestion for SAFETY When Using Physical Education Facilities in Rural Areas in Korea

The start of lifestyle sports in Korea began in 1962 with the introduction of the National Physical Education Promotion Act, but due to economic difficulties, it only started in earnest from the 1980s. In 1986, the National Physical Education Promotion Long-term Plan was established and with the establishment of the National Phys-ical Promotion Comprehensive Plan in 1990 and the first National Physical Promotion 5-year plan in 1993, and the second 5-year National Physical Promotion Plan in 1998, lifestyle sports began to emerge in earnest and its development began. The purpose of this study is to understand the current state of physical education facilities in rural areas and to analyze the safety consciousness according to physical injuries caused by physical education facility manage-ment and users and also to raise consciousness in the safety issues that arises from using physical education facilities. In 1995, as local self governing government heads began to be directly elected, local governments began to have the characteristic of local residents directly participating in local governance. As a consequence, local gov-ernments established lifestyle sports policies to meet the demands of local residents to participate in sports, and implemented policies which activate lifestyle sports to allow the activation of community-centered lifestyle sports. From 2006 to 2010, facilities for sports and leisure were established with the goal of establishing 2 to 3 sports facilities in each of the eup, myeon and dongs(Korean scale for categorizing cities), and small-scale exercise fa-cilities were installed in places easily accessible to nearby residents. However, since most of the subjects using these physical facilities are elderly people, the injury rate is high when using these physical exercise facilities as they lack knowledge on the safety procedures and knowledge on systematic sports activities, sports safety and skills. In particular, the rural population in Korea is composed of a typical aged society, and the percentage of sports injuries is very high in comparison to the population because there are many elderly people whose cogni-tive abilities are poor. The safety management area for using physical education facilities can be divided into physical management, work management, and the personal management of physical education facility users. The results of this study are as follows. 1) Physical activity safety accidents are caused most frequently by personal mistakes of the users. Therefore, regular education on the use of physical facilities and exercise equipment and safety rules is necessary and phys-ical trainer placement is also necessary. 2) It is necessary to provide administrative support for regular inspection and management of facility safety. 3) In case of an accident, first aid measures and communication with related organizations should be prepared. As mentioned above, such measures will contribute to reducing physical injuries of sports facility users in rural areas and raise awareness on sports safety.