On the occasion of the opening this Monday of the 23rd World Congress on Safety and Health at Work, which will be held for three days in Sydney (Australia), the International Labor Organization (ILO) calls for environments safer and healthier professionals. Nearly 3 million people die each year from work-related accidents and illnesses, according to new estimates published in a report by the UN specialist agency.
Of all these victims, 2.6 million, the vast majority of them, succumb to occupational diseases. Chief among these are circulatory diseases, malignant neoplasms and respiratory diseases. Work accidents represent, for their part, 330,000 additional deaths. The study highlights that “work-related deaths are unevenly distributed.” The mortality rate for men, which is 108.3 per 100,000 working people, is significantly higher than that for women (48.4 per 100,000).
Victims are also concentrated in the Asia and Pacific region (63% of the global total) due to the size of the active population in this geographic area. The most dangerous sectors of activity remain agriculture, construction, forestry, fishing and the manufacturing industry, with 200,000 fatal accidents per year, or more than 60% of deaths. The report also highlights that one in three fatal work accidents in the world occurs in the agricultural sector.
The ILO also notes that 395 million people have suffered non-fatal work accidents that are harmful to their health, leading to absences from work. To boost global efforts to ensure a safe and healthy working environment, the ILO Governing Body adopted the new global strategy on safety and health at work for 2024-2030.