Workers' health: the public health perspective

Overview

The ILO treats safety and health at work as a matter of labour standards and inspection; WHO treats workers' health as public health and a function of the health system. WHO addresses all determinants of workers' health — occupational hazards, social and individual factors, and access to health services — and asks health systems to respond to the needs of working people (WHO). Both perspectives are needed. In Georgia the labour side is carried by the Labour Inspection Service, while the health side — occupational health services, surveillance of work-related disease, health promotion at work — has no visible owner in published strategies. GILS, as a programme of a public health institute, brings this second perspective. Every figure on this page carries its source.

Key figures

The burden of work-related disease: what WHO and the ILO estimate

The WHO/ILO Joint Estimates attribute 1.9 million deaths in 2016 to 19 occupational risk factors: chronic obstructive pulmonary disease 450,000, stroke 400,000, ischaemic heart disease 350,000, and injuries 360,000 (19%); work-related deaths per population fell by 14% between 2000 and 2016, but deaths from heart disease and stroke linked to long hours rose by 41% and 19% (WHO and ILO, 2021). Working 55 or more hours a week carries an estimated 35% higher risk of stroke and 17% higher risk of death from ischaemic heart disease than a 35–40-hour week; 72% of these deaths are among men (WHO and ILO, 2021).

By WHO region, the European Region — Georgia's group — has the lowest exposure: 3.5% of the population worked 55 or more hours a week in 2016, down from 4.6% in 2000, and long hours account for 1.4% of ischaemic heart disease deaths and 2.5% of stroke deaths in the region, against 7.2% and 12.8% in South-East Asia (Pega et al., 2021, supplementary tables). Country values for Georgia are published in the WHO/ILO country tables and will be added here when GILS has verified them against the WHO data application.

WHO's earlier comparative risk assessment (2004 estimates, Global Health Observatory) gave 17.7 occupational deaths per 100,000 for the low- and middle-income countries of the European Region against 11.8 in high-income countries; those figures are superseded by the 2016 Joint Estimates and are cited here only for the historical record.

Georgia and the region: fatal injuries

The ILO publishes country-reported occupational injury rates. Georgia reported 2.35 fatal injuries per 100,000 workers in 2024, down from 3.0 in 2021, and 18.3 non-fatal injuries per 100,000 — 33 deaths and 257 injuries in 2024 (ILOSTAT). Among its neighbours, Azerbaijan reported 4.0 (2023), Armenia 4.2 (2020), Moldova 4.3 (2024), Russia 5.0 (2024), Ukraine 7.6 (2021) and Türkiye 11.5 (2024); the EU-27 standardised rate was 2.1 in 2024 (Eurostat).

Non-fatal rates are not comparable across countries: Türkiye reports 4,409 per 100,000 through its insurance system, Georgia 18 through inspection reports. Low non-fatal rates usually indicate under-reporting, not safety; WHO's and the ILO's guidance on recording (ILO Protocol of 2002) addresses exactly this.

The WHO framework

Health workers: WHO's 2023 country indicator

Source: WHO Global Health Observatory, OHS_POLICYSTATUS (2023). Worldwide: 28 countries Yes, 13 partially, 36 No policy, 107 Unknown. "Unknown" means the country did not report.

WHO reports that 8–38% of health workers suffer physical violence at some point in their careers and that up to 62% experience some form of workplace violence (WHO); the WHO/ILO guide makes immunisation, incident reporting and a facility focal point core elements of a programme (WHO and ILO, 2022). Georgia's non-reporting on the 2023 indicator is itself a finding: the health sector has not stated whether such a policy exists. See Health workers.

The five objectives applied to Georgia

"GILS review" indicates that GILS searched published Georgian strategies, laws and programme descriptions and found no provision; it does not assert that none exists.

Long working hours in Georgia

The Labour Code sets a 40-hour week, 48 hours for specified sectors, limits overtime by agreement and defines night work as 22:00–06:00 (ETF–Eurofound, 2024). Georgia's exposure to long working hours is not published by Geostat in the form WHO uses (share of employed working 55 hours or more a week). The WHO/ILO estimates show that this exposure, not accidents, carries the largest work-related disease burden worldwide; measuring it in Georgia would be a first step the health sector could take with existing Labour Force Survey data. See the dictionary entries on working time and overtime.

Where the two perspectives meet

• Recording and surveillance: the ILO Protocol of 2002 and WHO's health information systems point to the same gap — occupational disease is invisible in Georgia, while injury reporting to the ILO now runs to 2024.
• Occupational health services: ILO Convention No. 161 and WHO's call for basic occupational health services through primary health care describe the same missing service.
• Psychosocial risk: the ILO's 2026 World Day theme and WHO's mental health at work guidelines converge on work organisation as a health determinant.
• Health workers: the WHO–ILO joint framework and guide are the reference for the health sector as an employer, and WHO's 2023 indicator is the reporting line Georgia has not yet used.

Sources

• WHO and ILO (2021). Almost 2 million people die from work-related causes each year (Joint Estimates monitoring report). www.who.int
• WHO and ILO (2021). Long working hours increasing deaths from heart disease and stroke. www.who.int
• Pega, F. et al. (2021). Global, regional, and national burdens of ischemic heart disease and stroke attributable to long working hours, 194 countries, 2000–2016. Environment International. stacks.cdc.gov
• Pega, F. et al. (2021). Supplementary tables S6, S8, S10 (WHO/ILO Joint Estimates by WHO region). Environment International. www.sciencedirect.com
• WHO Global Health Observatory. Occupational risk factors (2004 estimates), superseded. ghoapi.azureedge.net
• WHO Global Health Observatory. Existence of national policy instruments for OSH for health workers (2023). www.who.int
• ILOSTAT. Safety and health at work: fatal and non-fatal occupational injuries (INJ_FATL_ECO_RT, INJ_NFTL_ECO_RT, INJ_FATL_ECO_NB, INJ_NFTL_ECO_NB). ilostat.ilo.org
• Eurostat. Fatal accidents at work (hsw_n2_02). ec.europa.eu
• World Health Assembly (2007). Workers' health: global plan of action (WHA60.26). ftp.cdc.gov
• WHO. Occupational health (access to occupational health services). www.who.int
• WHO–ILO (2010). Global Framework for National Occupational Health Programmes for Health Workers. www.who.int
• WHO and ILO (2022). Caring for those who care. www.who.int
• WHO. Preventing violence against health workers. www.who.int
• WHO (2019). Burn-out an "occupational phenomenon". www.who.int
• ETF–Eurofound (2024). Working life in Georgia. www.etf.europa.eu

Figures are from the GILS Evidence Register and the official sources shown. GILS is independent of government, trade unions, employers' organisations and the ILO.

In this section

GILS analyses on this topic

GILS Analysis · 3 Oct 2026Labour Inspection in Georgia Five Years After the Full Mandate: More Inspections, an Unratified Convention — and the Evidence Still MissingGeorgia's Labour Inspection Service has had a full mandate only since 2021. Inspections have grown fast, but Convention No. 81 is still unratified, staffing data are out of…Georgia Wire · 14 Sep 2026Georgia Wire: Parliament Hears the Labour Inspection Service’s 2025 Report — Five Years After the Full MandateParliament's Economic Policy Committee has heard the Labour Inspection Service's report for 2025: 7,111 inspections, 3,709 facilities inspected for the first time, and a reported 46% fall in…GILS Analysis · 12 Sep 2026Georgia Has Not Ratified the ILO’s Fundamental Safety Conventions: Why C155 and C187 MatterIn 2022 the International Labour Conference made a safe and healthy working environment a fundamental principle and right at work, raising the ILO's two framework conventions on occupational…Georgia Wire · 7 Aug 2026Georgia Wire: 32 Workplace Deaths in 2025, Two-Thirds in Construction — What the Labour Inspection Data ShowThe Labour Inspection Service recorded 32 workplace deaths and 179 injuries in 2025, and reported a 46% fall in fatal accidents compared with the previous year. Construction accounted…