Statistics Norway

Department for social statistics

Statistics Norway

Department for social statistics
Postbox 8131 Dep 033 Oslo Norway

Description of the data for non-fatal and fatal accidents:

Description of data for non-fatal accidents:
- Economic activity of the employer;
- Employment status, occupation, age, sex (and nationality of victim);
- Type of injury and body part injured;
- Data sources are reports sent to NAV by employers and register data from Statistics Norway;
- Reference year is 2021; statistics are based on reports in a given calendar year. This has two implications; one is that accidents and injuries may occur without being reported to NAV, the other implication is that accidents and inuries may have occurred prior to the reference year (in previous years);
- Data are released annually;

Description of data for fatal accidents:
- Economic activity of the employer;
- Employment status, occupation, age, sex (and nationality of victim);
- Type of injury and body part injured;
- Data sources are relevant inspection authorities;
- Data are released annually

The following classifications are used in ESAW:

• NACE Rev. 2: 2^nd revision of the Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community managed by Eurostat. For ESAW data NACE Rev. 2 is used from reference year 2008 onwards;
• ISCO-08: International Standard Classification of Occupations managed by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) (revision of 2008). ISCO-08 should be used from reference year 2011 onwards. ISCO-88 was used until 2010;
• NUTS: Nomenclature of territorial units for statistics. Latest NUTS version in force, depending on the reference year of the data collection;
• ICSE-93: International Classification by Status in Employment (revision of 1993).

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).

COVERAGE OF ECONOMIC SECTORS (NACE), (Annual update expected)

Additional comments on coverage of economic sectors

Codes:

y Sector fully covered
n Sector not covered at all
p Secor partially covered
n.a. Not applicable, i.e. sector does not exist in country

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'.

• This includes all accidents in the course of work, whether they happen inside or outside the premises of the employer, on the premises of another employer, in public places or during transport (including road traffic accidents or accidents in any other mean of transportation) and at home (such as during teleworking). It also includes cases of acute poisoning and willful acts of other persons;
• It excludes:
  • Commuting accidents: accidents that occur during the normal journey to or from home and place of work;
  • Deliberate self-inflicted injuries;
  • Accidents from strictly natural causes;
  • Accidents, purely private;
  • Accidents to members of the public, even if such an accident is due to a work activity within a company.

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. 

12 of the following 15 phase I and II variables are sent to Eurostat by Statistics Norway from reference year 2014 onwards on an annual basis:
1. Case number
2. Economic activity of the employer (NACE)
3. Occupation of Victim (ISCO)
4. Age of Victim
5. Sex of Victim
6. Type of Injury
7. Part of Body Injured
8. Geographical Location of the Accident
9. Date of the Accident
10. Time of the Accident (optional) - not reported
11. Size of the Enterprise (optional) - not reported
12. Nationality of the Victim (optional)
13. Employment Status of the Victim
14. Days Lost (severity) - not reported
15. Weight ESAW collection

In addition, four of the following nine phase III variables on 'causes and circumstances of the accident' are sent annually to Eurostat from reference year 2014 onwards:

1. Workstation (reported)
2. Working Environment (reported)
3. Working Process (not reported)
4. Specific Physical Activity (not reported)
5. Material Agent of the Specific Physical Activity (not reported)
6. Deviation (reported)
7. Material Agent associated with the Deviation (not reported)
8. Contact and mode of injury (reported)
9. Material Agent associated with the Contact - Mode of injury. (not reported)

Weights are calculated on the basis of severity by industry. All accidents are reported to Eurostat, including accidents which lead to an absence of less than 4 days. Overall, 40 per cent of the accidents reported to the Norwegian authorities are estimated to lead to absence from work of 4 days or more. This share (40 per cent) had to be estimated using statistical methods due to lack of information (see http://www.ssb.no/en/helse/statistikker/arbulykker/aar/2015-06-16?fane=om#content for more information). All accidents therefore had to be reported to Eurostat but they are weighted down (by industry) in order to comply with the cut-off at 4-days absence or more.

COVERAGE OF ESAW VARIABLES (Annual update expected)

Additional comments on coverage of ESAW variables

Codes:

Coverage
y Variable fully covered
n Variable not covered at all, i.e. variable is so far not collected in country
p Variable partially covered

Days lost
y num Days lost are covered and in data file listed by numbers (004 - 182)
y cat Days lost are covered and in data file listed by categories (A01 - A06)
p num, p cat Days lost are partly covered and listed by numbers (categories)

Type of weight
U weight to correct under-reporting
S weight to account for sampling
Sp weight to correct special sampling

Data are collected for each accident.

If a person is a victim of more than one accident during the reference year, several cases are reported (one for each accident).

If there are several victims in the same event of accident, also several cases are reported (one for each victim).

Non-fatal accidents: Only employees are reported. Fatal accidents: All fatal accidents should be reported, by law, to the relevant inspection authority. 

COVERAGE OF PROFESSIONAL STATUS (Annual update expected)

Additional comments on coverage of professional status

Codes:

y Professional status fully covered
n Professional status not covered at all
p Professional status partially covered
n.a. Not applicable, i.e. professional status does not exist in country

COVERAGE OF ACCIDENTS OUTSIDE PREMISES (Annual update expected)

Additional comments on coverage of accidents outside premises

 Codes:

y Accidents fully covered
n Accidents not covered at all
p Accidents partially covered
F Data of fatal road traffic accidents and fatal accidents on board of any means of transport provided in the main CSV data file
A Data of fatal and non-fatal road traffic accidents as well as fatal and non-fatal accidents on board of any means of transport provided in the main CSV data file

Data are available for all EU-Member States, Iceland (from 2012), Norway and Switzerland.

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.

Not applicable.

Numbers of accidents.

The calendar year the accident was reported (the accident may have occurred at a previous point in time).

Information concerning occupational injury and illness from NAV: https://www.nav.no/yrkesskade/en

Not applicable.

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).

There is currently no treatment of ESAW data with regard to statistical confidentiality taking place.

Statistics Norway's first release of national statistics was in June 2015 for the reference year 2014: http://www.ssb.no/en/helse/statistikker/arbulykker/aar/2015-06-16. Planned future releases will be in year N+1. 

National statistics, including the most recent publications, may be found at https://www.ssb.no/en/helse/helseforhold-og-levevaner/statistikk/arbeidsulykker 

http://www.ssb.no/en/kalender

National data released on Statistics Norway's home page at 8 a.m. on the date given in the overview of planned releases and events.

Dissemination to all users at the same time. 

Annual.

Regular article describing the statistics when releasing national statistics (annually).

Data are made available to the public on set date, together with descriptive article. Link to English version:

Accidents at work statistics for both fatal and non-fatal accidents (Statistics Explained article - updated once per year; https://www.ssb.no/en/helse/statistikker/arbulykker)

See data on Statistics Norway's website (https://www.ssb.no/statistikkbanken/selecttable/hovedtabellHjem.asp?KortNavnWeb=arbulykker&CMSSubjectArea=helse&PLanguage=1&checked=true)

Not available

ESAW data is not available as microdata.

Not applicable

Not available.

The ESAW summary methodology (version of 2013) defines further details of the data to be transmitted (see http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/en/web/products-manuals-and-guidelines/-/KS-RA-12-102).

All countries provide metadata

This file and similar files of (other) countries constitute the documentation available on data quality of ESAW.

Administrative data providing information on accidents at work are reported by employers to NAV and transferred as tiff (picture) files to Statistics Norway via a secure file transfer protocol.

Statistics Norway has taken necessary means in order to compensate for the information loss following the rejection of 50 per cent of the claim forms transferred as tiff files from NAV. These tiff files have to be optically read in order to retrieve information from them.

However, in 2014 half of them were rejected. There seemed to be two main causes; one being rejection of new forms due to technicalities; the other continued use of old forms despite introduction of new forms 1 January 2014. Old forms can not be read optically and lack many of the variables requested in ESAW.

NAV and Statistics Norway have taken several measures in order to reduce the amount of old forms. There has been a decline in 2015, but continued efforts are still being made in order to enhance this decrease.

In June 2015, Statistics Norway upgraded the program used to extract information from the tiff files. This led to a substantial decrease in the rejection of new forms. This will help increase data quality for the reference year 2015 and onwards.

An essential piece of information that was lost was assumed length of absence following an accident at work. Measures were taken in order to compensate for this information loss (please see 11,1 and http://www.ssb.no/en/helse/statistikker/arbulykker/aar/2015-06-16?fane=om#content for more information).

Main users are the government, organisations, researchers, students, journalists, and the public.

Users were invited to a breakfast seminar in June 2015 in relation to the release of national data for the reference year 2014. Users were thus made aware of the new national statistics as well as information to users concerning data quality and coverage (see 11. Quality for more on rejection of claim forms and lack of coverage for self-employed persons and freelancers).   

See Statistical pres. 3,4

ESAW phase I and II variables are covered at nearly 100% level (for derogations and other exceptions see relevant sections in this file).

However and as outlined in section 13. on accuracy and reliability, ESAW data suffers at various degrees from under-reporting in some Member States (see among others section 19. Comments).

Some Member States do not cover certain economic sectors, professions and employment types (some of which are voluntary to cover; see metadata file in annex).

ESAW Phase III variables are currently covered by about 50% on average for all Member States and variables (only three out of nine phase III variables' data are mandatory to transmit to Eurostat).

The following tables describes the data completeness for ESAW phase I, II and III in the Norwegian data, for the 2021 reference year.

Phase I and II

Phase III

REPORTING LEVELS OF ECONOMIC SECTORS (NACE), (Annual update expected)

Global reporting level

Reporting levels by sector

Additional comments on global reporting level

Codes:

N sector not covered by data collection
UNK sector covered but unknown reporting level
(value %) reporting level
(e) rough estimate (instead of "medium" or "high")

Statistics are based on reports sent to NAV (non-fatal) and to the relevant inspection authorities (fatal), as well as administrative data from Statistics Norway. 

In order for NAV to approve as accident at work the injured must be covered by occupational injury insurance. Most employed persons have compulsory occupational injury insurance through their employer. Self-employed persons and freelance workers can take out occupational injury insurance voluntarily (i.e. voluntarily joining the National Insurance Scheme, NIS). According to NAV very few choose to do so. Thus most self-employed and freelance workers are not represented in the Norwegian statistics. They should therefore also be exempt from the reference population.

An identified source of error is the rejection of the scanned forms that have to be optically read. Of the 24 000 claim forms sent to NAV in 2014 half were rejected by the optical reading program in Statistics Norway. Especially affected was the variable "days lost" that could only be found on the claim forms. However, results showed little or no bias between industries. Information from claim forms that were successfully read could therefore be used to estimate days lost for the rejected claim forms. From 2015 and onwards the share of rejected forms has decreased substantially (in April 2016 only 14 per cent were rejected).

Not applicable.

Not available. 

Not applicable.

Information about the coverage of variables, economic sectors, employment types and occupations can be fond in the metadata annex to this file.

Not available

Not applicable

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not available.

Not applicable.

Annual release of national statistics in year N+1.

This release contains fewer details compared to Eurostat ESAW data.

Eurostat ESAW to be sent by deadline of June in year T+2.

Annual release of national statistics approximately 6-9 months after the end of reference year.

First release in June 2015 for reference year 2014.

Last released in September 2022 for the reference year 2021. Next planned release in September 2023 for the reference year 2022.

There will be only one data release of national statistics (see No. 14.1.1)

Per date all data have been released on time according to schedule. 

See above.

Data on non-fatal accidents in Norway do not cover self-employed persons or freelancers.

This may affect comparability with other countries in absolute numbers.

It will also affect incidence rates if these groups are included in the reference population.

For meaningful comparison of standardized incidence rates, self-employed persons and freelancers should be excluded from the reference population.

Norwegian statistics are comparable between regions in Norway.

Not applicable.

There is a break in series between reference years 2013 and 2014. From 2014 and onwards there are new data sources and data should not be compared to previous reference years.

Datasets for reference years 2013 and earlier have been submitted by The Norwegian Labour Inspection Authority.

Datasets for reference year 2014 onwards are submitted by Statistics Norway. Data for non-fatal accidents are based on claim forms sent from employers to NAV. Data for fatal accidents are based on reports from all four inspection authorities (see No 18.1).

Break in series between 2013 and 2014. 

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. 

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

ESAW data on the Eurostat website since 2008 are largely coherent between the different datasets.

There are some exceptions if some countries use old classification systems such as for ISCO-88 classification for occupations.

An update in the NUTS classification combined certain Norwegian regions and recoded others, starting from the 2019 reference year. 

Total costs in 2015: approximately NOK 1 800 000. Includes automation of data capture from NAV to Statistics Norway in 2016.

ESAW data are occasionally revised, such as when a country notifies Eurostat about changes in the data and metadata.

In 2014 - 2015 a revision of reference populations of some countries was done which impacts on incidence rates (the reference populations is the denominator for incidence rates, the numerator is the numbers of accidents).

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 calculates revised data and sends it to the country's authority for agreement.

Not available.

Source data for non-fatal accidents are accidents at work reported to NAV (Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration) in a given calendar year and register data from Statistics Norway.

Source data for fatal accidents are The Norwegian Labour Inspection Authority, The Civil Aviation Authority,

The Petroleum Safety Authority and The Norwegian Maritime Authority.

Non-fatal accidents are collected monthly. Fatal accidents are collected annually.

ESAW data for non-fatal accidents comprise those reported to NAV.

For NAV to approve as an accident at work the person must have occupational injury insurance.

All employers are required by law to have occupational injury insurance for their employees.

By law all fatal accidents must be reported to the relevant inspection authority.

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:
- completeness of data files transmitted (variable fields)
- correctness of codes for each variable
- comparing aggregated data at EU level with aggregates at national level
- coverage of variables, sectors, employment types and other breakdowns
- checking for differences in reporting levels (under-reporting)
- comparing ESAW reference populations with EU Labour Force Survey (LFS) populations
- consistency of totals and various breakdowns
- use of variable weights to correct for sampling and/or under-reporting
- checking for outliers

Weights are calculated on the basis of severity by industry. All accidents are reported to Eurostat, including accidents which lead to an absence of less than 4 days. Overall, 50 per cent of the accidents reported to the Norwegian authorities are estimated to lead to absence from work of 4 days or more. This share (40 per cent) had to be estimated using statistical methods due to lack of information (see http://www.ssb.no/en/helse/statistikker/arbulykker/aar/2015-06-16?fane=om#content for more information). All accidents therefore had to be reported to Eurostat but they are weighted down (by industry) in order to comply with the cut-off at 4-days absence or more. 

Not applicable.

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.

Not applicable.