Published: 2021
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Injury, ill health and death are never intended consequences of work, but the available data documenting the continuing extent of work-related harm remind us that preventing these consequences remains a challenge. Despite huge advances in technology and health sciences, this challenge is still very much in evidence, even in the advanced market economies of the Member States of the European Union (EU). As is the case in all countries, workers continue to be injured, made ill or die as a consequence of their work. At the same time, it is widely accepted that such harm is largely preventable. Effective strategies to achieve such prevention remain elusive, making efforts to support compliance and achieve better practice an ongoing aim of national and EU policies. A further challenge for prevention strategies is that the circumstances in which work-related harm occurs are seldom static. In fact, a leitmotif of advanced economies nowadays is the speed of change in the structure and organisation of economic activity, and the technologies that support it. With this comes continuous change in the nature and distribution of work-related risks to safety and health. Policies, strategies and the actual measures to achieve effective prevention therefore also need to be responsive to these challenges. This report seeks to provide an overarching review of the literature concerning institutional support for these prevention strategies and measures and their role in improving occupational safety and health (OSH) in the context of the changing structure, organisation and control of work in the EU.