HASTE: European database on the health and safety of workers

The European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions has set up a database on the health and safety of workers in Europe. Entitled HASTE, the database is the result of a project launched in 1989 by the Foundation as part of its programme for monitoring ...

The European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions has set up a database on the health and safety of workers in Europe. Entitled HASTE, the database is the result of a project launched in 1989 by the Foundation as part of its programme for monitoring the work environment in the European Union.

The aim of HASTE is to catalogue information systems across Europe with a view to identifying risk factors affecting the health and safety of workers and determining indicators for possible preventive measures. The database currently contains over 160 descriptions of information systems in the Member States and has recently been enlarged to include Norway, Sweden, Finland, Austria, and the Czech Republic.

The types of systems included are:

- National surveys of families/workers;
- Specific sector surveys;
- Registers and databases dealing with specific occupational risks;
- Systems using data collected at a social security level.

Each system entry consists of contract information as well as a full description of the institutional context, general aims, intended users, origin and history, methodology, variables, type of product available, system integration, advantages/disadvantages, and a bibliography.

All systems collecting information on working conditions affecting the health and safety of workers are eligible for inclusion, providing the system collection is on a regular basis and covers a wide range of sectors.

Summaries of the various system descriptions are published in the report "The European Health and Safety Database (HASTE) - Summaries of descriptions of systems for monitoring health and safety at work" (ISBN 92-826-8856-9. Cat. No SY-85-94-810-EN-C). The report includes a floppy disk containing the full database version of HASTE.