Heart Disease Is Killing 1.71 Million Europeans a Year — and the Workplace Is Part of the Problem
Published on 10/18/2026 at 01:40 | Editorial boerse-global.de
Bilbao, 15 October 2026 — Chronic stress, sedentary shifts, round-the-clock rotas and punishingly long weeks are all feeding into Europe's largest single cause of death, according to the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA), which published a new evidence and guidance package on Tuesday aimed at getting cardiovascular risk out of the workplace and into prevention plans.
Cardiovascular disease accounts for 1.71 million deaths across the European Union every year. Measured against other work-related causes of death, it ranks second. The agency's answer is a set of publications that mix research, a review of existing regulation and practical models drawn from several member states.
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What's in the package
At the centre sits a 70-page report, Work-related cardiovascular disease prevention. Two shorter documents accompany it: an 8-page summary and a 6-page policy brief written for decision-makers. Five case studies round out the material, showing how different countries have put prevention into practice — among them Austria's Fit2work programme, dedicated health checks for farmers, support schemes for small and medium-sized enterprises in Slovenia and Dutch prevention guidelines.
The publications look at legal requirements, company-level strategies and wider initiatives. Beyond stopping cardiovascular disease from developing in the first place, they also address how workers return to the job step by step after an illness and how to keep people in employment over the long term. A dedicated section on the EU-OSHA website, titled "Cardiovascular health at the workplace", gathers information on risk factors and EU policy initiatives.
The 55-hour threshold
Risk factors in the workplace run from persistent psychological stress and lack of physical activity to very long working hours and shift patterns. On the last of these, the agency points to a 2021 study by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Labour Organization (ILO), published in the journal Environment International.
Working weeks of 55 hours or more were linked to 745,000 deaths worldwide in 2016, the study found. Strokes accounted for 398,000 of those and ischaemic heart disease for 347,000 — a 29% rise in deaths attributable to long working hours compared with 2000.
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The same research put a figure on the risk to the individual. Against a standard week of 35 to 40 hours, anyone working 55 hours or more faces a 35% higher risk of stroke and a 17% higher risk of developing ischaemic heart disease. The burden is not shared evenly: 72% of deaths tied to long working hours were among men.
