The magnitude of occupational diseases

The International Labour Organization (ILO) has estimated that more than 190 million cases of work-related diseases occur globally each year. 2.9 million people die due to different work-related diseases every year. This means that EVERY day, about 13 000 workers die as the result of a preventable disease, which has been induced or aggravated by a particular exposure in the workplace. The estimates are published by ILO, available in 2024. ILO is a United Nations agency dealing with labour issues, particularly international labour standards, social protection, and work opportunities for all.

Hardly any country in the world has reliable statistics concerning the burden of work-related diseases, as under-reporting is a major problem. Only a small fraction of work-related diseases are reported: we only see the tip of the iceberg.

The magnitude of occupational diseases.^{@L.O. Haaheim, UiB}

Work-related mortality by cause

^{Hämäläinen P et al, Finland, 2017}

The figure above shows the work-related mortality by cause, using global data from 2015. The main causes of death from all work-related diseases were circulatory diseases (31%), work-related cancers (26%), respiratory diseases (17%) and occupational injuries (14%). These diagnoses formed about 90% of all fatal work-related deaths.

Magnitude of occupational diseases in the future

A challenge related to occupational diseases is that most of these develop after some time of exposure. Some may develop quickly, like infectious diseases. Other diseases, like mesothelioma due to asbestos exposure do not develop until several years after the exposure took place. This challenge makes it difficult to study the risk factors related to health problems. Also, this makes it difficult to evaluate the effect of preventive work. An intervention to reduce risk factors at work might be very successful, but will maybe not be seen until years after the intervention was started. In many low-income countries there is no national statistics about occupational diseases, and the figure above is (unfortunately) based on insufficient data.

A special working group has recently developed new and quality assured data about work-related deaths from 2019 data from the Nordic countries. The figure shows work-related deaths from countries with a long period with industrial workers.

Work-related deaths in Nordic countries 2019.^{@Takala J et al. ICOH Global Estimates 2019.}

In 2019, an estimated total of 11 730 work-related fatalities occurred in the Nordic countries, with only 143 (1 %) were attributed to accidents at work. The leading causes of work-related deaths were cancers and circulatory diseases, the latter encompassing cardiovascular diseases. Considering the increasing life-span of workers in low-income settings, these figures are interesting. Non-communicable diseases might increase in low-income countries in the coming years, and this should be considered in plans for priorities of preventive work at the workplaces. Use of and exposure to carcinogenic agents should be well controlled to avoid a high number of cancer patients produced by the working life in the future.

Another issue shown in the figure above, is that fatal occupational accidents accounts for just 1% of the total. The priority of the labour inspectorate in most countries today is to prevent occupational accidents. This attention to occupational injuries is of course valid and necessary due to their immediacy and possibility to be prevented. However, it is necessary that all countries also give priority to reduce exposures at work with long latency periods – and include this topic in their strategies. Then occupational diseases might not develop to the same degree as here.