**7. Discussion**

Health inequalities can be defined as differences in health status between different population groups, where people who are less advantaged in terms of socioeconomic position have worse health (and shorter lives) than those who are more advantaged [9, 13, 17, 21, 26, 33]. Until a few years ago, the approaches to resolve health inequalities focused on improving health care quality and addressing unhealthy behaviors (incorrect life styles) to achieve greater health equity [10, 27, 30]. These approaches assume that people are the only ones responsible for their health, when they adopt an unhealthy lifestyle. Similarly, occupational safety and health rules are based on actions and procedures that workers have to address in their specific workplaces [1–5]. Although incorrect behaviors must be avoided, addressing work-related risks as though they exist solely within a workplace is an ineffective and incomplete strategy. Due to the recent social and economic changes, it has become more important than ever to anticipate new and emerging workrelated safety and health risks [33, 78].

The world of work has undergone profound transformations related to both demographic changes (e.g., age, gender, and ethnicity) and employment conditions (increasing the number of precarious and informal workers) [33, 78]. Similarly, changes that have taken place in the economy have increased the economic inequalities driven by neo-liberalism. For example, some changes in the organization of work have brought flexibility that allows more people to enter the labor force, but may also lead to psychosocial issues (e.g., insecurity), inadequate OSH, and excessive work hours [33, 78]. Lower level occupational roles and poor working conditions have been more common among people with a lower level of education and

lower position in the social gradient [22–25, 33]. Low occupational-skill jobs have often been associated with dangerous work and with worse work-related exposure, reflecting inequalities in exposure to risks [22, 25, 33]. Over the last few years, it has also been established that some organizational aspects can also induce new risks for workers [16, 21, 40, 44, 45, 48, 76, 77]. Among these, psychosocial risks need additional attention in terms of situations and employment practices that affect work-related stress and mental health outcomes [42, 44–46, 48, 76, 77]. In this scenario, people who are discriminated against at work according to age, gender, ethnicity, and contracts of hire should be considered more vulnerable workers than others [56–62, 64, 65, 78].

Finally, it should be considered that occupational accidents and work-related diseases have a substantial global impact, and this impact varies according to where workers live and work. Indeed, it is known that occupational mortality and morbidity are not equally distributed across the world. About two-third (65%) of global work-related mortality is estimated to occur in Asia, followed by Africa (11.8%), Europe (11.7%), America (10.9%), and Oceania (0.6%). This reflects the distribution of both the world's working population and differing levels of national economic development, as well as hazardous work.
