What is the WHO?
The World Health Organization (WHO) is the specialized agency of the United Nations system dedicated to public health, founded in 1948. It comprises 194 Member States and is headquartered in Geneva, with regional offices and a field presence in more than 150 countries. Its work encompasses public health in a broad sense: communicable and non-communicable diseases, health systems, health emergencies, and social determinants of health, among other areas.
This fact sheet does not aim to summarize the entirety of WHO’s activities, but to explain precisely what its role is in workers’ health, a field in which its mandate and instruments are different from those of the ILO.
The WHO’s mandate on workers’ health
The legal basis for the WHO’s actions in this area is Article 2 of its Constitution, which includes among its functions the promotion, in cooperation with other specialized agencies when necessary, of improvements in nutrition, housing, sanitation, working conditions, and other aspects of environmental hygiene. Based on this constitutional mandate, the WHO has developed resolutions, action plans, and technical networks focused on occupational health over the decades, understood as the health aspect of work: disease prevention, health promotion, and access to health services for the working population.
That mandate does not include regulatory power over workplace safety conditions or the ability to set binding international conventions on this matter: that function belongs to the ILO, as explained later in this document.
The Global Action Plan on Workers’ Health 2008-2017
The WHO’s reference instrument in this area is the global action plan on workers’ health, endorsed by resolution WHA60.26, adopted by the 60th World Health Assembly on 23 May 2007, for the period 2008-2017. The resolution is based on the premise that workers represent a very large part of the world’s population and that their health depends both on the risks inherent in the workplace and on general access to health services.
The action plan is structured around several elements:
- National policies. Development of policy frameworks on workers’ health, with coordination mechanisms between the ministries of health and labor.
- Coverage of essential services. Extension of occupational health interventions and basic services to all workers, including those in the informal economy, the agricultural sector, or migrants.
- Risk monitoring. Development of monitoring systems that allow recording exposure to occupational risks and early detection of work-related diseases.
- Strengthened collaboration with the ILO. Joint work to harmonize labor protection standards and support the implementation of international labor conventions.
Networks and collaboration tools with the ILO
The WHO maintains a global network of WHO Collaborating Centres for occupational health, designated academic and technical institutions in various countries that support the organization in research, training and technical assistance in this field.
Together with the ILO, the WHO has developed the International Chemical Safety Cards, reference sheets on hazardous substances intended for health, safety and emergency personnel, and has developed joint ILO-WHO estimates of the global burden of disease attributable to occupational risk factors, which quantify deaths and years of life lost associated with occupational exposure to airborne particles, carcinogens and other factors in the work environment.
Magnitude of the problem according to the WHO
In its fact sheet on protecting workers’ health, the WHO summarizes several facts that support its interest in this matter: the working population spends approximately one-third of its time at work; economic losses associated with work-related health problems are estimated at between 4% and 6% of gross domestic product in most countries; and a very large part of the global workforce, close to 70%, lacks insurance that covers them against occupational diseases, while only around 15% have access to specialized occupational health services.
The same source indicates that the most frequent occupational diseases are chronic respiratory diseases, musculoskeletal disorders, noise-induced hearing loss, and skin conditions, along with risks such as psychological stress, heat, dust, and hazardous chemical agents, and maintains that workplace health programs can significantly reduce absenteeism due to illness and associated healthcare spending.
Division of roles between the WHO and the ILO
It is important not to attribute functions to the WHO that it does not have. The WHO does not regulate occupational safety and health: it does not adopt international labor conventions, it does not establish legal obligations for States regarding working conditions, and it does not have compliance monitoring mechanisms equivalent to those of the ILO. Its role is health-related and technical: constitutional mandates on workplace hygiene, action plans, networks of collaborating centers, and joint statistical work.
The international normative function in occupational safety and health, that is, the development of specific conventions and recommendations on this subject, falls to the International Labour Organization, whose central instrument is ILO Convention 155. Both organizations collaborate, but their mandates and legal instruments are distinct.
Practical application
For a prevention service or an occupational health technician, the most directly useful material offered by the WHO are its fact sheets and technical guides on health promotion at work and on specific risks with a health component, as well as the joint estimates with the ILO on burden of disease, which serve as a comparative reference at the population level, not as a substitute for the risk assessment in a specific workplace.
For health and labor administrations, the global action plan on workers’ health remains the framework for articulating occupational health service coverage, particularly in sectors and groups with less access, such as the informal economy or the migrant population.
