Men who work at unskilled manual jobs are twice as likely to die prematurely as those working in higher professional occupations, the TCD health inequalities report shows.
Unskilled male workers are also eight times more likely to die from an accidental cause than those in professional jobs.
The authors also report a growing number of "unknowns" - people not classified by socio-economic category - who have the worst health of all groups in the Republic. Almost half of deaths in this group occurred in Dublin.
Statistics on deaths are compiled by the Central Statistics Office based on information provided on death certificates by doctors. The TCD researchers compared these statistics with occupational groups and geographic location. They analysed data from 1982 to 1996.
A comparison of death rates for coronary heart disease shows a higher rate for those working in semi-skilled and unskilled manual jobs. The study also shows a high mortality rate for heart disease in medium-sized towns throughout the Republic. People in Navan had the highest death rate from heart disease in the State.
Agricultural workers other than farmers and fishermen have by far the highest death rate from injury. "There is a health and safety issue to be addressed here," the report says. The authors identify an urban-rural divide in deaths from all causes. "One explanation for this urban/rural difference is that it is real and that people who live in towns have higher mortality than people who live in the countryside. However, when one looks at the rural district with the lowest mortality ratio in the country, it is, by a considerable margin, Meath. When one looks at the towns with the highest mortality, the top two, again by considerable margins, are Navan and Kells."
Single males in the capital have the worst health of all groups in the State, according to the report.
Among the group's recommendations are that annual reports on data be available no later than two years after the analysis, and that data on the social class of females should be collected in a way that it can be meaningfully analysed.