Occupational safety and health in Europe - state and trends 2023 
European Agency for Safety and Health at Work – EU-OSHA 13 
Eurostat’s new experimental European Occupational Diseases Statistics (EODS) indicates a decrease 
in some of the major recognised diseases due to technical preventive measures and to a shift of the 
workforce to sectors with less ‘classical’ exposures and related recognised occupational diseases.  
EU-OSHA has been engaged  in several research efforts to estimate the burden of work -related 
diseases, including their economic impact (this work is being continued by ICOH). The impact of the two 
major health consequences (‘Outcomes’) was calculated, that is, work -related deaths and work-
related diseases, measured in DALYs (lost life years due to disability, or in other words: one DALY is 
one lost year of healthy life).  
This report presents two estimates, one from WHO/ILO and one from ICOH. In 2021, the WHO and 
ILO jointly published estimates of the burden of work -related diseases for the period 2000-2016. The 
WHO/ILO calculate for the EU27 114,000 work-related deaths in 2016. When setting the absolute 
number of work -related deaths (114,000) in relation to the EU27  population above 16  years (371 
million), this gives a result of approximately 31 deaths per 100,000 population of working age above 
age 16.  
For 2019, ICOH estimates  179,000 deaths in total; moreover, they refer to the much smaller labour 
force population (201 million) and calculate 88 work-related deaths per 100,000 labour force.  
These estimates also provide figures on the relation between major  risks and the health outcome in 
DALYs. The DALYs that are attributable to work vary between 6.8 million life years (ICOH) and 4.4 
million life years (WHO/ILO) for the EU27.  
The main reason for these different estimates is the general approach: The WHO/ILO  used a different 
methodological approach and restricted their analysis to selected risk–outcome pairs, for example, long 
working hours as risk and stroke as outcome, whereas ICOH aspires to cover all work-related diseases. 
It can be concluded that despite methodological differences, the estimates do not vary that much if 
the same reference population  is used in the calculation. Future research will contribute to a better 
attribution of the impact of work on these diseases. Additionally, the impact of work on the prevalence 
of mental diseases will be incorporated in future estimates.  
Wellbeing and health  
Existing concepts of wellbeing cover more aspects of work than working conditions or safety and health 
at work. Eurofound mentions as the most relevant components: income, working time arrange ments, 
possibilities for skills development and career advancement, and the degree of individual control over 
work. 
ILO defines wellbeing at work under the term ‘Workplace Wellbeing’ : ‘Workplace Wellbeing relates to 
all aspects of working life, from the quality and safety of the physical environment, to how workers feel 
about their work, their working environment, the climate at work and work organization. The aim of 
measures for workplace well-being is to complement OSH measures to make sure workers are safe, 
healthy, satisfied and engaged at work.’ 
A common methodology to collect data on health status and wellbeing is self-reporting and self-
assessment of risks at work, health risks an d health problems, absence, job satisfaction and working 
life perspectives from a health point of view. This allows insight into the subjective assessment of health 
risks at work and wellbeing.  
Indicators on wellbeing and satisfaction at work show similar  patterns to health and work accidents. 
Sectors with high physical demands and high customer and client orientation and occupations with a 
lower skill level report lower wellbeing and satisfaction levels; they report a good health status but fewer