Lesson 2 Definitions

According to International Labour Organization (ILO), which is the United Nations agency setting the labour standards, occupational accident is “an unexpected and unplanned occurrence, including acts of violence, arising out of or in connection with work, which results in one or more workers incurring a personal injury, disease or death” and occupational injury is “any personal injury, disease or death resulting from an occupational accident”. Occupational injury may be fatal (causing death of worker) or non-fatal (resulting in absenteeism and loss of working days).
There is another term describing a different kind of health effect related to occupational exposure, which is “occupational diseases” which is described by ILO as “a disease contracted as a result of an exposure over a period of time to risk factors arising from work activity”.
This is a good place to make a note, that different countries use their own definitions of occupational diseases, which are usually related to some kind of compensation mechanism, or social support.
Thus, the cited definition by ILO is provided to give you a general view into this term.
You may also encounter term “work-related disease”, which for the purpose of this training, may be regarded as of similar meaning as occupational diseases. The most important difference lies in these compensation mechanisms and legislative approach to defining health status.