The definition
Article 3 of Law No. 6331 defines an occupational disease as an illness that arises as a result of exposure to occupational risks. The wording is short but carries two conditions: there is an illness, and that illness can be linked to an exposure arising from the work. Establishing the link is a medical assessment; which illness is attributed to which exposure, and within what liability period, is read from the schedules in social security legislation.
How it differs from an accident at work
An accident is a sudden event. An occupational disease follows an exposure spread over time: noise, dust, chemical agents, vibration, biological agents or repeated strain. That is why occupational disease usually surfaces in health surveillance records rather than in the accident book.
Notification periods in Türkiye
Article 14 of Law No. 6331 sets out the clock. The employer notifies the social security institution of occupational diseases reported to it by health providers or by the workplace physician within three working days of learning of them. Workplace physicians and health providers refer cases in which they make a preliminary diagnosis to health providers authorised by the institution. Those authorised providers notify diagnosed cases to the institution within ten days at the latest. The employer also keeps records of all accidents at work and occupational diseases and draws up the related reports.
What counts elsewhere
Other jurisdictions work from named lists. Under the British RIDDOR regulations, employers must report diagnoses of certain occupational diseases likely to have been caused or made worse by the work, among them carpal tunnel syndrome, occupational dermatitis, hand-arm vibration syndrome, occupational asthma, tendonitis of the hand or forearm, any occupational cancer and any disease attributed to occupational exposure to a biological agent.
Prevention runs through health surveillance
Article 15 of Law No. 6331 requires the employer to place workers under health surveillance in view of the risks they will be exposed to: on recruitment, on a change of job, on return after absence and at regular intervals while the work continues. Reading the examination calendar together with workplace exposure measurements is what makes early detection possible.
Where this sits in Optifora
The health surveillance and incident modules appear on the roadmap in the module catalogue; they have not been written yet. Occupational disease and accident figures by sector and year can be read from the statistics pages among the free tools.