WORKING CONDITIONS AS A DETERMINANT OF HEALTH INEQUALITIES BETWEEN THE OLD AND NEW EU COUNTRIES

Abstract

Poor employee health is currently one of the most important constraints in the process of managing human resource performance. This problem is related both to the need for companies to incur high economic costs related to absenteeism and staff turnover, and to the burden on national economies of lost productivity of human resources. The aim of this study was to determine the impact of factors related to occupational risks on the potential of labour resources in the EU-27 countries. An analysis of the burden of the consequences of the loss of health or premature death of people of working age was carried out. The trends observed in the analysed phenomenon in the countries of the "old" and "new" EU are assessed. The analysis uses data from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) Global Burden of Disease Study 2019, which shows the impact of occupational risk factors on the number of years of healthy life lost as a result of premature death (YLL - years of life lost) or disability (YLD - years lived with disability). The results of the study made it possible to assess the situation in Central and Eastern European countries against the background of Western European economies, providing a basis for identifying patterns of convergence in this area and for discussing the profitability of health programmes from an employer's perspective.