Analysis of Occupational Diseases Occurring in Forestry and Wood Processing Industry in Slovakia

The scope of this paper is the analysis of occupational diseases occurred in forestry and wood processing industry (WPI) between 2000-2009. The aim of this analysis is to highlight the development of occupational diseases and the impact of selected factors on development trend. The basis for the analysis was the basic information on affected persons - gender, job, age and duration of exposure to harmful agents, as well as the information about specific diseases and factors that support the appearance of the disease. Data for the ten-year observation period were evaluated graphically and the correlation between the selected qualitative characteristics was determined by the method of contingency tables. An interesting result is the proportion of diseases among women in the WPI, which reaches nearly 40%, in forestry where men are mostly harmed. The most often represented disease in forestry is vibration disease. The total share of the three types of this disease (vibration disease of joints, bones, tendons and muscles; disease of blood vessels and nerves; other vibration diseases and combined diseases caused by vibration) accounts for up to 52% of all occupational diseases. In the wood processing industry the damage of workers’ hearing was the most frequently occurring harm.