Work, a vital task for the majority, kills almost three million people in the world every year. And of those deaths, nearly 800,000 resulted from workdays longer than 55 hours. These are some of the key conclusions of the study “A wake-up call for healthier and safer working environments,” prepared by the International Labor Organization (ILO) and published on Sunday. Of these three million deaths (namely 2.96), the majority can be attributed to work-related illnesses (2.6 million) such as circulatory problems, cancer and respiratory diseases. The remaining 330,000 are related to work-related accidents.
However, the number of workplace deaths is not growing at the same rate as the population. This means that proportionately fewer people are dying because of their jobs today than at the beginning of the century. While work-related deaths increased by 12% from 2000 to 2019 (reference data from the ILO study), the working population increased by 26% over the same period. “Diagnostic tools have improved significantly over the past two decades, contributing to an increase in detected cases,” the report said.
The ILO study, carried out in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), links these deaths to the most common workplace risks. The cause of most deaths (744,942) is exposure to long working hours, i.e. over 55 hours per week. The other risks that cause the most deaths are exposure to gases and smoke (450,381), work-related injuries (363,283), exposure to asbestos (209,481), silica (42,258), substances that cause asthma (29,641), and ultraviolet solar radiation (17,936), diesel engine exhaust (14,728), arsenic (7,589) and nickel (7,301). These numbers correspond to the year 2016.
The analysis also correlates these risks with the health time they cost employees (disability-adjusted life years or DALYS). The risk that costs workers the most years of life is work-related injuries (26.44 million), followed by exposure to workdays longer than 55 hours (23.26), ergonomic factors (12.27) and exposure to gases and Smoke (10.86). The report provides further details: “The rate of trachea, bronchial and lung cancers attributable to occupational chromium exposure doubled between 2000 and 2016; the incidence of mesothelioma resulting from asbestos exposure increased by 40%; the rate of non-melanoma skin cancer increased by more than 37% between 2000 and 2020; “Deaths due to exposure to asthma triggers and particles, gases and vapors decreased by more than 20%.”
Regarding specific diseases, the ILO states that 32.4% of workplace deaths were due to circulatory problems, 27.5% to cancer, 14.3% to respiratory diseases, 11.3% to injuries, 7.2% to infectious diseases, 3% are due to asthma and 2.9% are due to neuropsychiatric diseases, 0.95% are due to problems of the genitourinary system, 0.94% are due to diseases of the digestive system and 0.15% are due to other reasons. According to the report, more than 13 million people worldwide live with an occupational visual impairment.
The report highlights that employment-related deaths account for 6.7% of all deaths recorded worldwide. These impacts vary by region, with the highest proportion occurring in Africa (7.4%), Asia and the Pacific (7.1%) and Oceania (6.5%). In Europe or America the proportion is lower, but the ILO does not provide the specific data or the information by country, which it will soon publish in an extension of this study. The ILO names agriculture, forestry, as well as fishing, mining, construction and manufacturing as the most dangerous sectors, and also focuses on the informal economy, which “lacks stable incomes and adequate protection.” It is also noticeable that many more men die from work-related causes (51.4 per 100,000 working-age adults) than women (17.2 per 100,000).
“In addition to the global tragedy of work-related deaths, an estimated 395 million workers worldwide suffered non-fatal workplace injuries,” this organization concludes.
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