Preventing workers from

becoming patientsAndrew Smith

European Agency for Safety and Health at Work

EU-OSHA

EU-OSHA – key facts

• An EU information agency dedicated to

promoting safer, healthier and more productive

workplaces

• Set up in 1996 in Bilbao, Spain

• 65 staff

• €14.5 million annual budget

• Network based

Main activities

• Identifying new and emerging risks

• European Risk Observatory

• Promoting a risk prevention culture by sharing

good practice

• Working environment information

• Practical tools

• Raising awareness and campaigning

• Healthy Workplaces Campaign

Safety and health trends in EU

• Small Agency

• Big issue

Work-related deaths in the EU-27

57%6%

23%

1%0.4%

4%5% 3%

Communicable diseases Cancers

Respiratory Diseases Circulatory diseases

Mental Disorders Digestive systems diseases

Genitourinary system Accidents and violence

Deaths attributed to work: 167 000 / year

Sources: Hämäläinen P, Takala J,

Saarela KL; TUT, ILO, EU-OSHA, 2008

Magnitude of non-fatal work-

related illnesses

Source:

http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/product_details/publication?p_product_code=KS-SF-09-063

Communications challenge

• 220 000 000 workers

• 25 000 000 SMEs

• 27 member states

• 23 languages

Our approach

• Use network and communication

partnerships to help get the message across

• Applies equally to our campaigning and

awareness raising activities as well as to our

electronic communications

• Online interactive risk assessment

Website

• Open Source Content Management System

• Content added by editors across Europe

• Multilingual – supported by 2000+ term

thesaurus

• More technical info in EN

• Translated using XLIFF technology (the system

collects html content across the website and

automatically replaces it once it is translated)

• For the blog – we offer Google Translate

Website

Online promotion activities

• Teasers

• Newsletter (OSHmail) (43,450 subscribers)

• Alert service (5,676 subscribers)

• Short messages

• RSS service

• Targeted Google adwords campaign

Social Media and future initiatives

• To reach different audiences, communicate, share

and promote information in different ways.

• To engage in a two-way interaction

• Attract readership and engage in conversations

• First tools: • Blog

• YouTube

• LinkedIn

• Twitter

• Facebook

OSH blog and Google Translate

Online interactive Risk

Assessment (OiRA)

• State of the art tool for micro and small

enterprises

• But needs to be adapted to sector and country

and SMEs persuaded to use it

• Development and diffusion strategy based on

partnership and complementarity

The tool

• 5 steps

• the tool is

developed

from the

company

point of view

• easy to use

Diffusing innovation through

partnership

• Social partners bridge the gap between distant

public authority in Bilbao and SMEs across

Europe

• Develop and customise the tool for their sector

• OiRA can be accessed from social partners

websites

• Ownership encourages take-up by the SMEs

we’re trying to reach

• Agency is testing top-down and bottom-up

approaches

Top-down approach

• Agency promotes the tool at EU level and puts

at the disposal of the EU social partners the

tool with the “EU generic content”

• EU social partners from one specific sector

develop the “EU sectoral tool” (in English with

references to EU legislation)

• Social partners at MS level are invited to

adapt the tool at national level (language,

legislation)

Bottom-up approach

• Social partners / Governments / Public

institutions at MS level develop the tool

• If Governments/Public institutions want to develop

a generic or sectoral tools, social partners should

be involved

• In case of a request from national social partners,

whose mirror EU committees have not developed a

sectoral tool, EU-OSHA will seek to involve the EU

social partners in the project.

What EU-OSHA offers

• EU-OSHA puts the OiRA tool (in English) at the

disposal of governments / public institutions /

national/EU social partners for free.

• EU-OSHA provides generic EU content and

technical support

• EU-OSHA does not provide expert support to

produce the different checklists.

Once the tool is available

• The tool will be hosted in EU-OSHA website servers and it will be accessible via the EU-OSHA portal as well as governments’ / public institutions’ / social partners’ websites

• The tool(s) will be free to access for any SME or any type of company who would like to make use of it via any of these websites.

• The tool can be updated

Pilot OiRA projects in 2010

• Top-down• EU Sectoral Social Dialogue committees –

construction, woodwork…

• Bottom-up (national)• Belgium – generic national tool

• France• ANACT – live performance

• INRS – hairdressers (?)

• Cyprus – several sectors...

• Bottom-up (sectoral)• Wind energy association (Spain)

Thank you for your attention

smith@osha.europa.eu