Factsheet 19 - Work-related Accidents in the EU - the Statistical Picture (1998-1999)
The European Week for Safety and Health at Work 2001 is targeting the human and financial costs of work-related accidents. Under the slogan ‘Success is no accident’, the campaign is stressing the economic as well as the human need to cut occupational accident rates in a bid to encourage more organisations to sharpen their safety and health practices. This factsheet presents recently released statistics from Eurostat that reveal that work-related accidents remain at stubbornly high levels. During 1998, there were 4.7 million occupational accidents leading to more than three days’ absence from work. This represents a fall in the incidence rate of 0.4% to 4 089 accidents per 100 000 people. Initial estimates for 1999 suggested the rate was on the rise again and would approach the level of 1996 (4 229). However, this would still represent a substantial improvement on the 1994 rate (4 539). The total number of accidents, including those which did not involve absence from work, amounted to 7.4 million, equivalent to 6 380 per 100 000. The incidence of accident-related deaths at work fell by 3% to 5.0 per 100 000 people. Overall, 5 476 people were killed at work. A further 3 100 fatal accidents occurred between home and work. Of this total of nearly 8 600 work-related deaths, 59% were due to road or transport accidents.
:
European Agency for Safety and Health at Work
:
02.10.2001
:
TE3300437END
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In 2009 and 2010, the Agency commissioned an update to its previous research on gender issues at work , which found that inequality both inside and outside the workplace can have an effect on the health and safety of women at work. This summary provides a policy perspective and is meant to contribute to the task outlined by the European strategy on health and safety at work for EU-OSHA’s European Risk Observatory, “examining the specific challenges in terms of health and safety posed by the more extensive integration of women in the labour market”. It provides a statistical overview of the trends in employment and working conditions, hazard exposure and work-related accidents and health problems for women at work. It explores selected issues (combined exposures, occupational cancer, access to rehabilitation, women and informal work, and “emerging” female professions such as home care and domestic work). The research highlights the type of work carried out by women, issues faced by younger and older women, the growth of the service sector, violence and harassment, and increasingly diversified working time patterns as major risk factors.
The report of Phase 2 of the “Foresight of new and emerging risks associated with new technologies in green jobs by 2020” identifies a shortlist of key technologies likely to be found in green jobs and have an impact on OSH by 2020. The list includes green technologies in the construction, transport, manufacturing, waste treatment and wind energy sectors; nanotechnologies; bioenergy and biotechnology; electricity transmission and storage; and domestic applications of emerging energy technologies. In Phase 3, a series of workshops is exploring the potential emerging OSH risks from these technologies in order to develop future scenarios helping decision makers to anticipate these risks.
The transport sector is one of the growing sectors in the European economy and highly affected by change: a growing proportion of women, migrant and part-time workers, rapid ageing of the workforce and many technological innovations. Transport workers are exposed to multiple physical risks, suffer violence, and many have unusual working times and repetitive and monotonous work. The consequences are high accident rates, musculoskeletal disorders, stress and fatigue. This report reviews the OSH risks of a wide variety of transport occupations, by analysing statistics and studies, and through selected case examples of prevention. The report has a broad scope: it covers all transport subsectors (rail, water, air and road) and is intended for both those working in the sector and policymakers.
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