Occupational safety and health in Europe - state and trends 2023 
European Agency for Safety and Health at Work – EU-OSHA 135 
Research on risks, exposures and outcomes including future developments  
This type of data and research deals with the description and analysis of risks and exposures and 
health outcomes (there are basically three outcomes: 1) work accidents, 2) diseases, and 3) wellbeing 
/ job satisfaction / overall perception of health at work), and their interlinkage. Risk identification and 
exposure assessment relates to several types of risks and exposures: mechanical, physical, chemical 
or biological risks, including those risks caused by the circumstances at workplaces (e.g. those technical 
basics listed in the Directive on minimum safety and health requirements for the workplace470), and risks 
caused by the work organisation, including aspect s like work intensity and time pressure, poor 
communication and misunderstanding, harassment and discrimination  and work with clients and 
customers. All these topics are subjects of a wider field of different sciences, ranging from engineering 
and natural sciences to psychology and sociology to several medical disciplines. 471  
Similar methodological considerations were also essential for EU-OSHA to initiate a worker survey on 
workplace exposures to carcinogens and occupational c ancer (2020 to 2024). 472 Reliable and 
publicly available exposure data are rare for many typical daily work situations. It is for this reason that 
EU-OSHA has chosen an approach that relies on an expert system, that is,  it connects the description 
of workplaces and work tasks to exposure estimates of probable occurrence of and exposure to certain 
carcinogenic substances.  
A specific section of this research is the foresight on the development of risks  at workplaces. Major 
trends are analysed regarding their impact on OSH ; these can be trends like digitalisation including 
aspects like robotics, AI virtual work environments, globalisation including aspects like OSH in supply 
chains or migration, green tr ansformation including aspects like circular economy, demographic 
changes with aspects like ageing, and public health developments like diseases related to prolonged 
sitting.473 
 
Research on effective technical and organisational preventive measures 
Based on these predominantly ‘diagnostical findings’, an often separated strain is the development of 
preventive measures. Engineering and natural sciences mainly deal with the development of preventive 
technical measures to avoid accidents and limit health-impairing impacts. This technical OSH research 
includes the development or improvement of preventive technologies, of safe and healthy products and 
processes at workplaces, a regulation, a practical guidance or standard setting.  
Social sciences (organisational sociology, occupational psychology and similar) are active in developing 
preventive measures for organisational risk factors. They develop  best practice models  and 
contribute to  guidance and standards, as well as  background data and evidence for legislati on 
regulations and good practices of awareness raising and intervention.  
OSH systems and infrastructures  
The preventive effectiveness of OSH systems and infrastructures in enterprises and at state level is 
another major research field. These studies ofte n focus on qualitative assessment, for example, the 
assessment of the performance and effectiveness of such systems and infrastructures  (e.g. 
DG EMPL, IALI474). They often cover not only enterprises (employers and workers) and the government 
but also the wider OSH infrastructure, for example, professional associations and research institutes.  
Research about prevention practices and processes in enterprises 475 covers aspects like awareness 
raising, supporting and hindering factors to initiate preventive activities,476 the impact of guidance