Objectives The relationship between work and some diseases that they can provide is already known for a long time. Because of these conditions some projects were created to improve conditions of work and to support the worker loses her job capacity such, among them the disability retirement. The objective of this study was to identify cardiovascular disease as risk factors for disability retirement.

Method Was realised a literature review, including articles published in 2000 to 2013, being surveyed those in the period from April to November 2013, using the following descriptors: risk factors, pensions and cardiovascular diseases in databases PUBMED/MEDLINE, BIREME, SCOPUS, WEB OF SCIENCE and COCHRANE. Found, respectively, 8, 8, 27, 2 and 0 items. After deleting the duplicate items, those whom were not in English or Portuguese and non revolved around the topic of study, 7 remained. All showed a positive association between disability retirement and cardiovascular diseases.

Results In the study used to compare relative risk for cardiovascular disease retirements with musculoskeletal found the same risk for both diseases. Other studies showed association between increased uric acid, poorly controlled hypertension, perceived stressful work postures and work and increased risk for this retirement. There is a huge investment in prevention campaigns for workers’ health to prevent the musculoskeletal disease, but not always the same commitment to the prevention of the cardiovascular.

Conclusions In conclusion cardiovascular disease has high significance for the health of the employee, being an important risk factor for disability retirement, and should be encouraged to implement policies to prevent these.