Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union

Unit ESTAT.F5: Education, health and social protection

European Commission, Eurostat

2920 Luxembourg

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:

• Economic activity of the employer and size of the enterprise
• Employment status, occupation, age, sex and nationality of victim
• Geographical location, date and time of the accident
• Type of injury, body part injured and the severity of the accident (number of full calendar days during which the victim is unfit for work excluding the day of the accident, permanent incapacity or death within one year of the accident)
• Variables on causes and circumstances of the accident: workstation, working environment, working process, specific physical activity, material agent of the specific physical activity, deviation and material agent of deviation, contact - mode of injury and material agent of contact - mode of injury (mandatory 3 out of 9).

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.

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).

For full details on these classifications, please see our nomenclature server Ramon.

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).

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. 

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:

• Case number
• Economic activity of the employer (NACE)
• Occupation of Victim (ISCO)
• Age of Victim
• Sex of Victim
• Type of Injury
• Part of Body Injured
• Geographical Location of the Accident
• Date of the Accident
• Time of the Accident (optional)
• Size of the Enterprise (optional)
• Nationality of the Victim (optional)
• Employment Status of the Victim
• Days Lost (severity)
• Weight ESAW collection

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:

• Workstation
• Working Environment
• Working Process
• Specific Physical Activity
• Material Agent of the Specific Physical Activity
• Deviation
• Material Agent associated with the Deviation
• Contact and mode of injury
• Material Agent associated with the Contact - Mode of injury.

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.

The statistical unit is the accident at work.

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:
84.22 Defence activities
84.23 Justice and judicial activities
84.24 Public order and safety activities
84.25 Fire services activities

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.

Data are available for all EU-Member States and EFTA countries.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

Not available.

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.

See Eurostat website for occasional news releases.

See Eurostat website for publications on accidents at work including:

Statistics Explained articles - updated once per year:

1. Accidents at work statistics (main article)
2. Accidents at work by economic activity
3. Accidents at work on causes and circumstances

See Eurostat website.

Not applicable.

None.

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.

Quality reports are available with the national metadata.

Quality considerations play a central role with regard to Eurostat corporate management as well in the day-to-day statistical operations.
The European Statistics Code of Practice sets the standard for developing, producing and disseminating European statistics (see Quality Overview for more information). It builds upon a common European Statistical System (ESS).

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.
Eurostat organises about each year a Working Group on European Statistics on Accidents at Work, in which statistics and its metadata are presented. In particular, various quality issues such as data coverage and reporting levels are discussed and related improvements are discussed.

In general, Eurostat aims to continuously improve the quality of ESAW data together with Member States.
ESAW is an administrative data collection which provides information on accidents at work as they are reported by the Member States following national practices.

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:
- 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 (text with EEA relevance).
- 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.

ESAW summary methodology (version of 2013) defines further details of the data to be transmitted.

Member States fulfill their obligations in relation to these legal acts and guidelines. This includes all classification systems.
However, the data sources in Member States are to some degree heterogeneous. For example, in some Member States accidents are reported in the framework of accident insurances whereas in other Member States universal social security system apply in case of accidents. 

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.

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:

• Other EU organisations concerned with health and safety at work, in particular Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion (DG EMPL) as well as the EU agencies: European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) and European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound);
• Member States authorities such as statistical authorities, labour ministries, labour inspectorates;
• International organisations dealing with health and safety at work such as ILO;
• Business associations, trade unions and NGOs;
• Researchers and students;
• Media.

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.
ESAW data users are often interested in information concerning individual economic sectors. Incidence rates are important for comparing the situation in different Member States and economic sectors. While absolute numbers of accidents for individual economic sectors (at NACE Rev.2 at 2-digit or more detailed level) reflect appropriately the accidents reported in Member States, incidence rates (number of accidents per 100,000 workers) depend also on reference populations which are sometimes not very accurate for smaller sectors.

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.

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.
Member States shall transmit to the Commission (Eurostat) the list of variables set out in the Annex of this regulation. Member States shall provide data and metadata required by this Regulation.

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.
A significant issue for the accuracy of ESAW in the European Union is assumed to be the under-reporting of accidents (see other sections in this file for more information). Under-reporting means that certain accidents that should have been reported were in fact not reported, e.g. if enterprises or workers are not aware of the obligation/possibility to notify or if they are afraid of the consequences of notification such as possible state investigations and requirements to invest in health and safety. However, even in those countries which suffer from significant under-reporting it is thought that the majority of fatal accidents are reported which then give a more comparable picture for the EU.

In addition, it is assumed that non-fatal accidents are reported to a higher degree in insurance-based systems if they offer significant financial compensation for victims of these accidents. 

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.

Non-fatal accidents (serious accidents) at work:
Incidence rates are often only comparable between Member States of the same notification system (insurance or universal social security). In some Member States, weights are added to adjust the number of accidents, e.g. using data from Labour Force Surveys (LFS).

Fatal accidents at work:
In general, fatal accidents at work are assumed to be of higher accuracy than non-fatal accidents at work as fatal accidents are usually investigated by relevant state authorities.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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. 

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.

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

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.

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).

Annual.

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).

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
- comparing ESAW reference populations with EU Labour Force Survey (LFS) populations
- consistency of totals and various breakdowns
- checking for outliers

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.

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.