Definition: Severity

Category: Living conditions

Accidents at work and commuting accidents : see Days lost (including permanent incapacity).

Occupational diseases : 

For permanent disabilities, the degree of disability (%) should include ¿true¿ values of 10 % or more, provided in size bands (B02 to B05). In addition, data on permanent incapacity less than 10 % are not available in some national systems or are not covered similarly among the Member States. Consequently a predefined value (= B01) should be dedicated for mild cases of permanent occupational disease (i.e. recognised but considered to have a degree of disability less than 10 %). This code will allow excluding these cases if necessary when doing comparison analysis. Finally, values of disability above 49 % (including 100% or more and pension) should be entered as code B06. 

This classification should be used either for physiological, administrative or mixed evaluation of the degree of disability, as the breakdown between these 3 groups of systems used by the Member States will be done by Eurostat that will carry out separate analysis for each of these 3 groups. However, for cases that have been recognised as a permanent occupational disease but for which no degree of disability could be specified in a comparable way, the code B00 should be entered.

For temporary occupational diseases (only temporary sick leave during the reference year), the total duration (days) of sick leave (> 3 days) due to the disease during the reference year should be entered in the appropriate sizeband (code A02 - A08). For occupational diseases recognised for a temporary incapacity leading to a sick leave of less than 3 days, the differences between the compensation national systems are important. This is why a predefined value (= A01) should be dedicated for mild cases of temporary occupational disease (i.e. recognised but with less than 3 days sick leave and no permanent degree of disability). This code will allow excluding these cases if necessary when doing comparison analysis.

A code 998 is given to cases, either which were recognised for the first time only post-mortem or more generally all fatalities due to an occupational disease (inclusion criteria 2 and 3) are coded 998 for the reference year of the incidence of the death.