Back Pain Prevalence in US Industry and Estimates of Lost Workdays

Details

• Personal Author:
  Cameron, Lorraine L. ; Guo H ; Halperin, William E. ; Tanaka, Shiro
• Description:
  Back pain is the most common reason for filing workers' compensation claims and often causes lost workdays. Data from the 1988 National Health Interview Survey were analyzed to identify high-risk industries and to estimate the prevalence of work-related back pain and number of workdays lost. Analyses included 30074 respondents who worked during the 12 months before the interview. A case patient was defined as a respondent who had back pain every day for a week or more during that period. The prevalence of lost-workday back pain was 4.6%, and individuals with work-related cases lost 101.8 million workdays owing to back pain. Male and female case patients lost about the same number of workdays. Industries in high-risk categories were also identified for future research and intervention, including those seldom studied. This study provides statistically reliable national estimates of the prevalence of back pain among workers and the enormous effect of this condition on American industry in terms of lost workdays. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Demography Musculoskeletal Diseases Occupational Health Risk Assessment Risk Factors Safety Sex Characteristics Workplace
• Keywords:
  Back-injuries Demographic-characteristics Risk-analysis Risk-factors Sex-factors Worker-health Workplace-studies
• ISSN:
  0090-0036
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Ohio ; OSHA Region 5
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  DSHEFS - Division of Surveillance, Hazard Evaluations, and Field Studies
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Volume:
  89
• Issue:
  7
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20025602
• Citation:
  Am J Public Health 1999 Jul; 89(7):1029-1035
• Contact Point Address:
  How-Ran Guo, MD, MPH, ScD, Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, Medical College, National Cheng Kung University, 138 Sheng-Li Road, Tainan 70428, Taiwan, Republic of China
• Email:
  hrguo@mail.ncku.edu.tw
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  1999
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Source Full Name:
  American Journal of Public Health
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:49c720f8b06fb45df0dcab3e1e30aa854d33ab535e93fdd541498a1c644434c7936a6bbc801dbe768e689d2ff5cb4bb66419327e43123183e85aeda84a04a460
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/196892/cdc_196892_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.80 MB ]