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For any question on data and metadata, please contact: Eurostat user support |
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1.1. Contact organisation | Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union |
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1.2. Contact organisation unit | Unit ESTAT.F5: Education, health and social protection |
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1.5. Contact mail address | European Commission, Eurostat 2920 Luxembourg |
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2.1. Metadata last certified | 06/02/2024 | ||
2.2. Metadata last posted | 06/02/2024 | ||
2.3. Metadata last update | 06/02/2024 |
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3.1. Data description | |||
Harmonised data on accidents at work are collected in the framework of the administrative data collection 'European Statistics on Accidents at Work (ESAW)', on the basis of a methodology developed first in 1990. European Statistics on Accidents at Work (ESAW) - Summary methodology - 2013 edition is the last version available. An accident at work is defined as 'a discrete occurrence in the course of work which leads to physical or mental harm'. If the accident does not lead to the death of the victim it is called a 'non-fatal' (or 'serious') accident. The data include only fatal and non-fatal accidents involving more than 3 calendar days of absence from work. A fatal accident at work is defined as an accident, which leads to the death of a victim within one year of the accident. The variables collected on accidents at work include:
The national ESAW sources are the declarations of accidents at work, either to the accident insurance of the national social security system, a private insurance for accidents at work or to other relevant national authorities (labour inspection, health and safety authority, etc.). As an exception, when data from administrative sources are not available, survey data might be used to fill-in the data gaps.
Eurostat website has a structure that includes four folders with accidents at work data:
1. Accidents at work (ESAW, 2008 onwards) contains the most recent data. This folder has other three sections: 'Main Indicators', 'Details by economic sector (NACE Rev2, 2008 onwards) and 'Causes and circumstances of accidents at work'.
Depending on the table, data are broken down by: economic activity (NACE 'main sectors' (1 digit code) or more detailed NACE divisions (2 digit codes)); the occupation of the victim (ISCO-08 code); country; severity of the accident, sex, age, employment status, size of the enterprise, body part injured and type of injury. The unit of measure depends also on the table. The following units of measure are available: numbers, percentages, incidence rates and standardised incidence rates of non-fatal and fatal accidents at work.
2. Accidents at work (ESAW) – until 2007 contains back data covering the reference period 1993-2007, these data refer to the version 1.1 of the NACE classification (NACE Rev.1.1.).
3. Accidents at work and other work-related health problems (source LFS) – present the results of the LFS ad-hoc modules dedicated for health and safety, that are comparable, for the reference years when they have been conducted namely 2007, 2013 and 2020. They are presented in the form of tables that refer to accidents at work; work-related health problems and exposure to risk factors for physical and mental well-being.
4. Work related health problems and accidental injuries – LFS 1999 presents data collected with the LFS ad-hoc module dedicated to health and safety at work 1999. These are historical data, the comparability of the results with the waves 2007, 2013 and 2020 is limited, for this reason the results are presented separately.
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3.2. Classification system | |||
The following classifications are used in ESAW:
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3.3. Coverage - sector | |||
All economic sectors according to NACE Rev. 2 should in principle be covered from reference year 2013 onwards. Before the reference year 2013, there was no obligation to cover sectors outside the so-called 'common branches' A and C – N. However, most Member States covered those non-common sectors B and O – U before on a voluntary basis. Data delivery for sectors T and U is voluntary Some sectors and professions are subject to confidentiality rules. According to the ESAW implementing Regulation 349/2011 (Annex II).
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3.4. Statistical concepts and definitions | |||
European Statistics on Accidents at Work (ESAW) are based on case-by-case data for accidents at work resulting in more than 3 days' absence from work or death of the victim. An accident at work is a discrete occurrence in the course of work which leads to physical or mental harm'.
A fatal accident at work is defined as an accident that leads to the death of a victim within one year of the accident. In practice the notification of an accident as fatal ranges from national registration procedures where the accident is registered as fatal. Phase I and II variables The following 15 phase I and II variables have to be sent by Member States to Eurostat from reference year 2011 onwards on an annual basis:
Phase III variables In addition, three of the following nine phase III variables on 'causes and circumstances of the accident' have to be sent annually to Eurostat from reference year 2013 onwards:
Not all the EU Member States report the same three variables. Finally, the weight on Causes and Circumstances has to be sent if the Member State applies an additional sampling for the encoding of the ESAW Phase III variables on causes and circumstances. The definition of the variables is stated in the Commission Regulation (EU) No 349/2011 and further specified in the ESAW methodology.
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3.5. Statistical unit | |||
The statistical unit is the accident at work.
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3.6. Statistical population | |||
In principle, all accidents at work should be covered that fulfil the definition of '3.4. Statistical concepts and definitions'. In terms of employment types covered, Member States are required to report on 'employees'. The other employment types (i.e. self-employed, family workers, etc.) are voluntary.
Some sectors and professions are subject to confidentiality rules. According to the ESAW implementing Regulation 349/2011 (Annex II). Member States deliver the following NACE Rev. 2 divisions of sector O on a voluntary basis only:
In addition, some professions (occupations) are also subject to national confidentiality rules and delivered on a voluntary basis: - 0 Armed forces occupations - 3351 Customs and border inspectors - 3355 Police inspectors and detectives - 541 Protective services workers a. 5411 Fire-fighters b. 5412 Police officers c. 5413 Prison guards d. 5414 Security guards e. 5419 Protective services workers not elsewhere classified
A detailed overview about which Member State covers which economic sectors and employment types is available in the national metadata files published and can be accessed from the European metadata.
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3.7. Reference area | |||
Data are available for all EU-Member States and EFTA countries. |
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3.8. Coverage - Time | |||
Data are available since reference year 1993 for all EU-15 Member States, from 1995 also for Norway. From reference year 2008, data for all EU Member States (current composition of the EU as of 2020) and EU aggregate are available. Croatian data are included since 2010. Data for Switzerland was added from 2004 and Icelandic data from 2012. United Kingdom data are available until the reference year 2018. |
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3.9. Base period | |||
Not applicable. |
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The following measurement units are used in ESAW data: - Number of accidents - Percentages of accidents (in relation to different totals and breakdowns) - Incidence rates of accidents: number of accidents per 100,000 workers - Standardised incidence rates: number of accidents per 100,000 workers adjusted for the relative sizes of economic sectors at EU level (see section 18.6 Adjustment for more details). |
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The calendar year during which the accidents were reported to have taken place (reference year). |
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6.1. Institutional Mandate - legal acts and other agreements | |||
The implementing Regulation under which Member States report ESAW data to Eurostat is Commission Regulation (EU) No 349/2011 of 11 April 2011 implementing Regulation (EC) No 1338/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council on Community statistics on public health and health and safety at work, as regards statistics on accidents at work. The afore mentioned Regulation 349/2011 implements the framework Regulation EC N° 1338/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council on Community statistics on public health and health and safety at work. Commission Decision 2011/231 of 11 April 2011 granted derogations to certain Member States with respect to the transmission of statistics pursuant to Commission Regulation (EU) No 349/2011 of 11 April 2011 implementing Regulation (EC) No 1338/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council on Community statistics on public health and health and safety at work, as regards statistics on accidents at work.
The current strategy of the EU concerning health and safety at work is outlined in the following EU Commission Communication: Strategic framework on health and safety at work 2021-2027.
The previous strategies can be consulted here: The health and safety at work strategy of the EU from 2014 until 2020: EU Strategic Framework on Health and Safety at Work 2014-2020. The health and safety at work strategy of the EU from 2007 until 2012: Community strategy 2007-2012 on health and safety at work. The health and safety strategy of the EU from 2002 and 2006: Commission Communication COM (2002) 118 Final and Council resolution 2002/C 161/01 on a new Community strategy for safety and health at work 2002-2006.
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6.2. Institutional Mandate - data sharing | |||
Eurostat does not share the data with any other Organisation or Institution, however specific extractions can be made on request by users and other organisations. |
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7.1. Confidentiality - policy | |||
Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics (recital 24 and Article 20(4)) of 11 March 2009 (OJ L 87, p. 164), stipulates the need to establish common principles and guidelines ensuring the confidentiality of data used for the production of European statistics and the access to those confidential data with due account for technical developments and the requirements of users in a democratic society. Commission Regulation (EU) No 557/2013 of 17 June 2013 implementing Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European Statistics as regards access to confidential data for scientific purposes and repealing Commission Regulation (EC) No 831/2002 Text with EEA relevance, 'establishes the conditions under which access to confidential data transmitted to the Commission (Eurostat) may be granted for enabling statistical analyses for scientific purposes, and the rules of cooperation between the Commission (Eurostat) and national statistical authorities in order to facilitate such access' (article 1). |
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7.2. Confidentiality - data treatment | |||
Microdata of Member States are sent via secure e-Damis application. The microdata as received by Eurostat from the National Statistical Institutes or other statistical authorities do not contain any administrative information such as names or addresses that would allow direct identification. Access to this microdata is nevertheless strictly controlled and limited to specified Eurostat staff. Currently, there are no restrictions applied when publishing aggregated data. |
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8.1. Release calendar | |||
Eurostat disseminates accidents at work data by the occurrence concept as soon as possible after data have been transmitted by a country and validated by Eurostat. When all countries have sent their data for a certain reference year, Eurostat calculates EU aggregates and releases them and all other indicators. This usually takes place in the last quarter of each year. |
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8.2. Release calendar access | |||
Not available. |
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8.3. Release policy - user access | |||
In line with the Community legal framework and the European Statistics Code of Practice Eurostat disseminates European statistics on Eurostat's website (see item 10 - 'Accessibility and clarity') respecting professional independence and in an objective, professional and transparent manner in which all users are treated equitably. The detailed arrangements are governed by the Eurostat protocol on impartial access to Eurostat data for users. |
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Annual. |
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10.1. Dissemination format - News release | |||
See Eurostat website for occasional news releases. |
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10.2. Dissemination format - Publications | |||
See Eurostat website for publications on accidents at work including: Statistics Explained articles - updated once per year: |
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10.3. Dissemination format - online database | |||
See Eurostat website. |
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10.4. Dissemination format - microdata access | |||
Not applicable. |
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10.5. Dissemination format - other | |||
None. |
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10.6. Documentation on methodology | |||
Eurostat (2013): 'European Statistics on Accidents at Work (ESAW) - Summary methodology, 2013 edition'. Previous editions: - Eurostat (2012): 'European Statistics on Accidents at Work (ESAW) - Summary methodology, 2012 edition', ISBN 978-92-79-23133-9, ISSN 1977-0375, doi:10.2785/2509, Cat. No KS-RA-12-002-EN-N. - DG Employment and social affairs and Eurostat (2001): 'European statistics on accidents at work (ESAW) - Methodology - 2001 edition', Health and safety at work series, co-publication with Eurostat. |
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10.7. Quality management - documentation | |||
Quality reports are available with the national metadata. |
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11.1. Quality assurance | |||
Quality considerations play a central role with regard to Eurostat corporate management as well in the day-to-day statistical operations. The Quality Assurance Framework of the European Statistical System (ESS QAF) identifies possible activities, methods and tools that can provide guidance and evidence for the implementation of the Code of Practice when developing, producing and disseminating European statistics. |
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11.2. Quality management - assessment | |||
In general, Eurostat aims to continuously improve the quality of ESAW data together with Member States. The type of data transmitted to Eurostat as well as its timing and other aspects follow strict rules. Eurostat together with Member States systematically check and validate data transmissions according to the following legal acts and further guidelines: ESAW summary methodology (version of 2013) defines further details of the data to be transmitted.
A particular challenge of ESAW data are the issues of (i) under-reporting of non-fatal accidents in some Member States, (ii) differences in the coverage of self-employed, family workers and other non-employee workers (voluntary data), and (iii) accuracy of reference populations (number of employed persons in economic sectors) and incidence rates (reference populations are the denominators of incidence rates). Eurostat cooperates with the Member States in finding the best solutions to address these issues.
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12.1. Relevance - User Needs | |||
In line with the European Union legal framework and principle 6 (impartiality and objectivity) of the Code of Practice, Eurostat develops, produces and disseminates European statistics respecting scientific independence and in an objective, professional and transparent manner in which all users are treated equitably (see http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/quality/european-statistics-code-of-practice for more information). The main users of the ESAW data at EU level are:
Eurostat regularly meets other EU and international organisations as well as representatives of relevant Member State authorities. In addition, it communicates with other user groups such as researchers, students and the media via several channels including its user support, website and through events such as conferences and meetings. The needs and comments from these user groups are continuously taken into account when deciding about what statistics are collected and disseminated. |
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12.2. Relevance - User Satisfaction | |||
Eurostat carries out regular user satisfaction surveys (see https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/main/about-us/policies/evaluation) including for statistical domains such as 'health'. All available information about user satisfaction is taken into account when developing data collections. However, there is currently no dedicated user satisfaction survey on ESAW statistics. Information about the downloads of individual datasets, detailed tables, publications and Statistics Explained articles is regularly compiled and analysed. |
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12.3. Completeness | |||
The Commission Regulation N° 349/2011, of 11 April 2011 implementing Regulation (EC) No 1338/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council on Community statistics on public health and health and safety at work, as regards statistics on accidents at work, describes the data transmission requirements. |
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13.1. Accuracy - overall | |||
As an administrative data collection, the data transmitted by Member States to Eurostat are thought to exactly reflect the number of accidents notified to the relevant national authorities. Therefore, ESAW data are considered to have a high level of accuracy in relation to the absolute number of accidents notified in Member States. Most countries' data are not any more subject to under-coverage. In general, under-coverage means that a known part of the economy or workforce of a country is not covered by the data, for example if an economic sector or a certain professional status (e.g. civil servants) is by definition not included in the notification system of a country. Incidence rates and standardised incidence rates (number of accidents per 100,000 workers) vary often strongly between the two main types of notification systems, the insurance based and the universal social security based systems as listed before. |
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13.2. Sampling error | |||
Not applicable. |
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13.3. Non-sampling error | |||
Not applicable. |
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14.1. Timeliness | |||
The legal requirement for Member States is to send Eurostat ESAW data until 30 June of year N+2, where N is the reference year in which the accidents took place. As soon as one or several Member States have sent their data they are published on the Eurostat website. In some cases this may happen already some months before the legal deadline of June. |
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14.2. Punctuality | |||
Most countries transmit data before and a few days - weeks after the legal deadline of 30 June of year N+2. Eurostat then checks and validates this data and publishes most of it on its website within a few weeks (in July N+2 or before). A few countries may send data only during July - September of year N+2. All data is usually published until September - October of year N+2. |
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15.1. Comparability - geographical | |||
Comparability is good as countries are using the same standards and definitions. Data on fatal accidents have a high level of comparability between all countries. Data on non-fatal accidents are considered to be of limited comparability across certain groups of countries. See section 13 on 'accuracy' for further details, in particular concerning the existence of two different types of accident notification systems (insurance based and universal social security system based). Standardised incidence rates are calculated in order to enable comparison between countries (some countries have larger high-risk sectors in terms of work accidents, for example concerning certain occupations in transport, construction, manufacturing and agriculture; see section 18.6 Adjustment for more details). |
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15.2. Comparability - over time | |||
Data on the Eurostat website is divided between datasets with reference year up to 2007 (included), and datasets with reference year from 2008 onwards. There is a break in series in 2020, when a new code has been created to capture occupational COVID-19 cases, where possible, not all countries having the same practice. Additionally, some countries have reported some other break in series that are described in their national reference metadata files, attached to this report. |
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15.3. Coherence - cross domain | |||
ESAW data on non-fatal accidents may be compared with relevant data from the Labour Force Survey ad-hoc modules on accidents at work and other work-related health problems available from the same main data tree branch 'Health and safety at work (hsw)'. However, this comparison should consider the source of data administrative versus self-reported. |
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15.4. Coherence - internal | |||
ESAW data on the Eurostat website since 2008 are largely coherent between the different datasets. |
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At EU level, the ESAW data collection is currently managed by about 1 - 1,5 full-time persons. IT costs for receiving, processing and publishing ESAW data at Eurostat cannot be estimated as resources are shared with all other Eurostat statistical data domains. Costs of administrative overhead, missions and other supporting staff resources have not been assessed but may be similar as for the entire organisation (Eurostat / EU Commission). The costs for ESAW data collection and treatment at national level are not included but each country may report on it in its own quality report available from this webpage. There are currently no other costs involved in the ESAW data collection. |
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17.1. Data revision - policy | |||
The general Eurostat revision policy applies to this domain. ESAW data are occasionally revised, such as when a country notifies Eurostat about changes in the data, metadata, and reference population. |
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17.2. Data revision - practice | |||
The practice for data revisions is similar to the practice of publishing new data: either the country sends revised data to Eurostat, which checks, validates and publishes it in agreement with the responsible national authority, or Eurostat makes the corrections for revising data and sends it to the country's authority for agreement prior to publishing. All reported errors (once validated) result in corrections of the disseminated data. Reported errors are corrected in the disseminated data as soon as the correct data have been validated. Data are only published once they are deemed to be sufficiently complete for all data providers. European aggregates are published only when data are available from all Member States. Whenever new data are provided and validated, the already disseminated data are updated, including the European aggregates which are recomputed and updated for the reference year affected by the updated data. |
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18.1. Source data | |||
Eurostat receives ESAW data from the relevant national authority or insurance system (administrative data sources). The original national data sources are employers' declarations of accidents at work, either to (1) relevant insurance companies, (2) national social security systems or (3) labour inspectorates or similar national authorities. For non-fatal accidents in the Netherlands only survey data are available (a special module in the national labour force survey). The number of employed persons (reference populations) are provided either by the countries (at NACE 2-digits level), or are taken from the EU Labour Force Survey (when countries are not able to provide their own reference populations). |
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18.2. Frequency of data collection | |||
Annual. |
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18.3. Data collection | |||
ESAW data are extracted from relevant national administrative databases according to ESAW concepts, definitions, variables and classifications (see also section 3. ‘Statistical presentation’ and section 18.1. ‘Source data’ above). |
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18.4. Data validation | |||
Various automatic and manual checks are performed on ESAW data transmitted from Member States to Eurostat in order to identify possible errors and inconsistencies with the ESAW methodology. Countries are asked to check all inconsistencies and corrections and re-send data if necessary. Validation activities at EU level include: |
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18.5. Data compilation | |||
Eurostat uses the weights provided by the Member States to calculate the number of accidents and all derived indicators. EU aggregates are computed only when all the countries have submitted the data. Eurostat is not imputing any missing data. Standardised and non-standardised incidence rates are calculated using number of accidents and reference populations (see relevant annex to this file). Standardised incidence rates are calculated in addition to normal incidence rates in order to eliminate the effect that some countries have larger high-risk sectors than others (such as agriculture, construction or transport). The standarisation method consists in multiplying incidence rates with weights corresponding to the shares of sectoral workforces in the total EU workforce. High-risk sectors are those in which the number of work accidents per 100,000 workers is typically higher. Examples are the sectors transport, construction, manufacturing and agriculture (in particular concerning some occupations within these sectors). For more details, please refer to the ESAW summary methodology (see annex) and to the annex of this file. |
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18.6. Adjustment | |||
In general, there are no adjustments done for ESAW data. ESAW standardised and non-standardised incidence rates are checked to some degree for outliers. In case of unreasonable high or low values of these incidence rates, in particular for certain more detailed breakdowns of data, Eurostat may remove related incidence rates from dissemination and replace the values by appropriate codes. As ESAW is an annual administrative data collection, there are no seasonal adjustments nor other time series adjustments done. |
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Not available. |
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Transmission_Guidelines_2021 ESAW standardised incidence rates COVID_19_ANNEX Note on comparability of FR ESAW data |
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