Occupational safety and health in Europe - state and trends 2023 
European Agency for Safety and Health at Work – EU-OSHA 73 
frequency rates, which show the incidence rate and frequency rate of long- term (12 weeks or more 
compensation) injury and disease claims.172  
 
OSH Barometer – Non-fatal accidents at work: 
https://visualisation.osha.europa.eu/osh-barometer/accidents-diseases-well-being/work-
accidents/non-fatal-work-accidents 
OSH Barometer – Fatal accidents at work: 
https://visualisation.osha.europa.eu/osh-barometer/accidents-diseases-well-being/work-
accidents/fatal-work-accidents 
Eurostat – Accidents at work (ESAW and LFS Ad hoc modules): 
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/health/data/database 
 
4.2 Trends in health outcomes 
 
‘The misfortune (harm) that these types of 
workers get from the work in their 
workshops, beyond their uncomfortable 
sitting life, is the threat of Myopia. The 
well-known affection of the eyes, because 
self-evidently for a good visibility it is 
necessary to move the eyes closer to the 
objects of work.’173,174  
 
Ramazzini, 1713: De Morbis Artificum Diatriba in its 
chapter on ‘Diseases of those who do fine work’. 
Ramazzini’s observation anticipates somehow the 21st 
century knowledge on sedentary work and about 
accommodative fatigue at a near viewing distance. 
 
Work-related health outcomes represent a much higher burden  for society than work 
accidents.175 More workers are affected; the overall costs are much higher. At first glance, the trend of 
health outcomes (illnesses and wellbeing) caused by ‘exposures’ at workplaces is similarly 
decreasing like the accident trend; that is the case if the scope of the analysis refers to the officially 
recognised occupational diseases.  
The situation is complex, because only few and mostly the recognised occupational diseases have a 
unique cause-effect relationship, that is,  a very strong relation between one specific ex posure at 
work and one (or more) well-defined disease(s) as a result of this exposure.  
In 1987, a joint ILO/WHO expert committee on occupational health offered the suggestion that the term 
work-related diseases may be appropriate to describe not only recogni sed occupational diseases but 
other disorders to which the work environment and performance of work contribute significantly as one 
of the several causative factors (Joint ILO/WHO Committee on Occupational Health 1989):  
‘Nevertheless, it is not always that easy to designate a disease as being work-related. In fact, there is a 
wide range of diseases that could be related in one way or another to occupation or working conditions. 
On the one hand, there are the classical diseases that are occupational in nature, generally related to 
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