European occupational diseases statistics
Why are these statistics needed?
European occupational diseases statistics (EODS) are essential elements in the European Commission's strategy to assess the efficiency of Community legislation on health and safety at work.
To improve the working conditions, knowledge of the numbers, rates, frequencies and trends of occupational diseases are fundamental. They allow the monitoring and the prioritization of preventive actions at Community level.
Currently, no such database exists at the European level. The objective of EODS pilot is to respond to this need by gathering national data in a unique database and provide trends on the most recognized occupational diseases in the European Union.
These requirements are underlined in Annex V of EU regulation 1338/2008. Beyond the occurrence of diseases, these data provide useful information about causality, exposure and medical consequences which are needed for the prevention and the evaluation of the issue.
Why are they experimental?
Their experimental nature is because data on recognised cases of occupational diseases reflect not only the occurrence of such diseases, but also the way in which the concept of occupational disease is integrated into the national social security systems.
The existence of different legal systems and procedures for the recognition of occupational diseases in Europe makes the comparative exercise difficult. Mainly because a low number of recognised cases of an occupational disease is neither a sign of its absence, nor necessarily proof of successful prevention. In the same way, well-established detection systems and large-scale information campaigns could explain the high numbers of reported and recognised cases in some countries.
How are they produced?
The occupational disease statistics are based on administrative data collected at national level by various organisations and usually centralized by the statistical office. EU regulation 1338/2008 outlines the domain specific requirements of the data collection. This includes its aim, scope, subjects covered, reference periods, intervals and time limits for data provision, metadata, etc.
Due to the comparability issues, the current dissemination has been limited and consists of one indicator called EU INDEX that shows the evolution of the diseases in the EODS short list of occupational diseases over time, at EU level. The EU INDEX will be complemented by the national country profiles, which will show the national situation in relation to the short list of occupational diseases. The dissemination of national country profiles is subject to national agreement.
For more details, please consult:
- Methodological note on the method for calculating the EU index
- Variables collected
- Short list of diseases and their groupings
Access to the statistics
Due to comparability issues, the dissemination of European occupational diseases statistics is limited to the short list of diseases.
Statistics Explained article
Database
Excel files
Country profiles
They show the distribution of recognised cases of occupational diseases in the EODS short list and some of their breakdowns.
Each country profile provides specific access to:
- Data: country data file in .csv format (restricted to the EODS shortlist and availability subject to national agreement)
- Metadata file
- Methodological note: country specific information (reporting procedures, recognition and compensation systems and statistical coverage)
To access the country profiles, please click on the country flag below.
Feedback
To help Eurostat improve these experimental statistics, users and researchers are kindly invited to give us their feedback by email:
- Would you have comments or suggestions regarding the ‘EODS short list of occupational diseases’ and their groupings?
- Would you have comments or suggestions regarding the collected variables?
- Which other indicators could be useful and taking into account overcoming the comparability problem?