National occupational safety and health systems: Exploring the underlying networks for future sustainable development

•Occupational safety and health systems are used as a lever for higher effectiveness.•Future sustainability of national OSH systems is needed for better OSH management.•We interpret how national OSH systems work in terms of functions and organizations.•Data on national OSH systems are sourced from the OSHwiki website of EU-OSHA.•A framework with essential functions and bodies in European countries is provided. Any intervention, initiative, or programme – whether implemented at the local or national level – builds upon existing infrastructure, which, if properly managed, enables sustainable development. Within this perspective, this study examines national Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) systems, specifically a set of European countries, by studying their dynamics through cross-national analyses and investigating their similarities and differences, fostering OSH improvement through new national strategies and possible collaboration between national entities. A secondary data analysis is conducted based on the OSHwiki database of the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA), which has a dedicated section on European national OSH systems. This database makes different countries easily comparable – under one single language and the same degree of granularity – which is not trivial if considering the other available primary sources. For a consistent sample, with a controlled heterogeneity, this study includes eleven European countries. An iterative inductive process of data comparison on national OSH systems is used to establish a suitable framework for data analysis. As a result, a range of fundamental functions and recurring bodies, covering – to different extents – the previously identified functions, constitute the framework, which are the most transversal functions for the selected countries. These findings provide valuable insights into how these functions are carried out differently across countries, detecting potential shareable best practices and improvement directions for the future sustainability of national OSH systems.