UN Study Links Overwork, Death from Heart Disease, Stroke
Voice of America
GENEVA - A growing number of people around the world are dying from heart disease and stroke because of overwork, a new World Health Organization-International Labor Organization study says. The study is based on data from more than 2,300 surveys collected in 154 countries from 1970 to 2018.
The study says those working at least 55 hours a week are at higher risk of dying from heart disease and stroke. In 2016, the data show 1 in 10 people around the world, or 450 million, worked excessively long hours, leading to 745,000 heart disease and stroke deaths. Frank Pega, a technical officer in WHO’s department of environment, climate change and health, says this is a 29% increase since 2000. “We know that this burden disproportionately affects men," said Pega. "Seventy percent of all death deaths? from cardiovascular disease occur occurs? in men, according to our official estimates. Also, the regions that are most affected are Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific. And we can tell you that it appears that middle-aged and older workers are disproportionately burdened.”A Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials researcher controls a wheelchair with stiffness-variable "morphing" wheels in Daejeon, South Korea, Nov. 5, 2024. The "morphing" wheel can roll over obstacles up to 1.3 times the height of its radius. Inspired by the surface tension of water droplets, it goes from solid to fluid when it encounters impediments.
FILE - Part of the temples of Baalbek, a UNESCO world heritage site in Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley, illuminated in blue light, Oct. 24, 2015. FILE - This picture shows closed shops on an empty street in the eastern Lebanese city of Baalbek on Oct. 19, 2024. FILE - People walk near the Roman ruins of Baalbek, Lebanon, Jan. 5, 2024. FILE - A man sits amidst the rubble at a site damaged in the aftermath of an Israeli strike on the town of Al-Ain in the Baalbek region, amid the ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, in Lebanon, Nov. 6, 2024.
Dr. Jaafar al Jotheri, shown here Nov. 10, 2024, holds satellite images and explores the site of the Battle of al-Qadisiyah, which was fought in Mesopotamia -- present-day Iraq -- in the 630s AD. A desert area with scattered plots of agricultural land with features that closely matched the description of the al-Qadisiyah battle site described in historic texts, Nov. 10, 2024.