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Safety at Work
This is the 2007 draft on work safety. You will get the newest version here.
Employees need occupational safety to keep their health and capacity to work.
Affected people and foundations of life: During their working lives globally 20-30% of the male and 5-20% of the female working-age population are exposed to lung carcinogens, like asbestos, arsenic, cadmium, diesel exhaust,
Worldwide 10% of cancer of the lung, trachea and bronchus can be attributed to occupational exposures. Millions of workers in mining, construction etc. are exposed to microscopic airborne particles of silica, asbestos and coal dust. ( 2002, 75.)Deaths: about 1 million deaths per year by occupational injuries, diseases, or toxification (
by airborne particulates or lead exposure; WHO 2004a, 2146).Loss of healthy life-years:
- injuries: 13.1 million healthy life-years ( ) annually
- noise: 4.15 million DALYs annually
- airborne particulates: 3.04 million DALYs annually
- carcinogens: 1.42 million DALYs annually
- ergonomic stressors: 0.818 million DALYs annually (WHO 2002, 226).
Targets/goals: no international target.
Trend: ? no trend data available.
Measures: Occupational cancers are entirely preventable through hygiene measures, substitution of safer materials, enclosure of processes, and ventilation (WHO 2002, 75).
Annotations
DALYs: Disability-adjusted life years.
One DALY represents the loss of one year of equivalent full health. DALYs are the sum of the years of life lost due to premature mortality (YLL) in the population and the years lost due to disability (YLD) for incident cases of the health condition. (WHO 2004, 95f.)
Sources
- WHO 2002 – World Health Organization: The World Health Report 2002 – Reducing Risks, Promoting Healthy Life.
- WHO 2004 – World Health Organization: WHO Report 2004.
- WHO 2004a – World Health Organization: Comparative Quantification of Health Risks.
Draft (2007)
Photo credit: © BMU/Oberhäuser