Monitoring of Occupational Safety and Health in the European Union
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There are a wide variety of approaches towards monitoring occupational safety and health in the European Union aiming to describe the situation at different levels from the company level to a national overview. It has become a very dynamic area with a number of new models and strategies. The overview of systems has shown that no single data source can provide a complete and adequate description of occupational safety and health. |
The different approaches chosen for monitoring OSH at national level include monitoring health outcomes, describing the workplace environment, and describing the infrastructure and the level of prevention at national and at enterprise level. The “traditional” data collection approaches, based on outcome factors such as accident and diseases data, have been complemented by some new initiatives that combine data sources and monitor the infrastructure and resources at different levels. All these initiatives strive to reach the goal of having as complete a picture as possible of occupational safety and health at the level chosen i.e. for the purpose of “early warning”, decision-making and possible corrections.
This feature will be continually updated as a key element in the Agency’s efforts to contribute to a systematic approach to OSH monitoring and to a better understanding of the situation of occupational safety and health in the European Union.
Resources
- a Forum publication (issue 11 - Monitoring occupational safety and health in the European Union) summarising a seminar on this theme, held in Bilbao on 30th September and 1st October 2002 and jointly organised by the Danish Presidency and the Agency in cooperation with the European Commission,
- the full workshop proceedings;
- a report about OSH monitoring systems describing the main types of systems used in the European Union and related publications about the state of occupational safety and health in the EU and EFTA countries;
- a collection of descriptions of OSH Monitoring Systems;
Who should read this feature?
- Policy makers interested in information that can be used to identify priorities and needs for future policies in the area of OSH as well as for monitoring the efficiency of legislation and other preventive actions carried out,
- Researchers or students interested in methodologies used for evaluate the outcomes
- OSH professionals interested in concepts of monitoring
