Recognized occupational diseases in the working-age population

Information about all recognized and suspected occupational diseases is recorded in the Finnish Register of Occupational Diseases (FROD) maintained by the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health.

FROD receives insurance company data from the Finnish Workers' Compensation Center (TVK) and the Farmers' Social Insurance Institution (Mela). TVK gathers data from all other insurance companies except Mela. FROD also receives copies of reports submitted to the Regional State Administrative Agency on occupational disease by doctors. This data is used to complement insurance company data.

Description

The Finnish Register of Occupational Diseases is a research register maintained by the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health under the Act on the Operations and Financing of the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health (159/1978, section 2a, subsection 2) for the purpose of research, examination and prevention of occupational and other work-related diseases and the development of their diagnosis and treatment.

In order to ensure privacy protection, the openly available data has been made more imprecise and data on the Åland Islands has been omitted. In addition, samples of under five cases have been removed. If multiple occupational diseases have been simultaneously recorded in the register for a specific case, the occupational disease with the most severe consequences has been included in the data. For the aforementioned reasons, the quantities in the data are not fully comparable with those of the annual publication of the Finnish Register of Occupational Diseases.

What the indicators describe

The data includes the cases of recognized occupational diseases in the working-age population (15–64-year-olds) from six different periods (2016–2020, 2015–2019, 2014–2018, 2013–2017, 2012–2016, 2011–2015). The data on occupational diseases has been linked to an exposure agent group (10 groups) and occupation class (Classification of Occupations 2010, 2-digit level). The cases by occupation class are presented as a number of cases and as a figure in proportion to 1,000 employed in the occupation class concerned.

The number of recognized occupational disease cases and number of cases by municipality are presented annually as a number and in relation to one thousand employed persons. The number of recognized occupational diseases of the working-age population as a number and in relation to one thousand employed persons are also presented per gender, age group and industrial sector (Standard Industrial Classification 2008, main class).

The workforce figures concerning the working-age population (15–64-year-olds) have been obtained from Statistics Finland.

The data is updated simultaneously with the annual publication of the Finnish Register of Occupational Diseases.