Global call for monitoring workers’ health in The Lancet
Global call for monitoring workers’ health in The Lancet Occupational health experts from WHO and countries have called for data and monitoring systems of workers’ health to improve monitoring of progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. The call was published in The Lancet (available here) as part of the Lancet Series on Work and Health (available here).
The authors note that changes in the world of work, such as globalization, automation, digitization, new pandemics, environmental pollution and climate change, are causing new occupational health hazards and increasing health inequalities among workers. The experts call for data and monitoring systems to strengthen monitoring of health and labour rights, the social and environmental determinants of health, and health inequalities among workers.
The WHO/ILO Joint Estimates of the Work-related Burden of Disease and Injury (available here) have shown that exposure to long working hours cause 40% of all work-related deaths and that work-related diseases (not injuries) cause 81% of work-related deaths. Indicators are available for 183 countries on the proportion of the population exposed to long working hours and on the number of deaths from work-related diseases from the WHO Occupational Burden of Disease Application (available here).
The authors include the Minister of Health of Somalia and senior managers from WHO and the Ministries of Health or national institutes of occupational health of China, Italy, Nepal, South Africa, Togo and the United States of America.
