The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA

Abstract #70755

Benjamin C. Amick, PhD¹, Michelle M. Robertson, PhD, CPE², Lianna Bazzani, MS¹, Kelly DeRango, PhD³, and Anne Moore, PhD⁴. (1) School of Public Health, University of Texas-Houston Health Sciences Center, PO Box 20186, Houston, TX 77225, 713-500-9496, bamick@sph.uth.tmc.edu, (2) Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety, 71 Frankland Road, Hopkinton, MA 01748, (3) Upjohn Research Institute, 300 S. Westnedge Ave, Kalamazoo, MI, Afghanistan, (4) Department of Kinesiology, York University, 4700 Keele St, Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada

The study examines the effect of an office ergonomics intervention on musculoskeletal symptoms. Workers receiving a highly adjustable chair and office ergonomics training group would experience reduced musculoskeletal symptom growth over the workday compared to those in the training-only control groups, and workers in the training-only group would experience reduced musculoskeletal symptom growth over the workday compared to workers in the control group. Employees invited and agreeing to participate were assigned to one of three study groups: a group receiving a highly adjustable chair with an office ergonomics training, a training only group, and a control group receiving the training at the end of the study. Data collection occurred twice prior to intervention (two months and one month prior to the intervention) and three times after the intervention (two, six and twelve months post-intervention). During each round, a short Daily Symptom Survey (DSS) was to be completed at the beginning, middle, and end of the workday for five days during a workweek to measure total bodily pain growth over the workday. Multilevel models were used to test hypotheses about symptom growth within individuals. The chair-with-training intervention lowers the rate of pain growth over the workday (b= -0.94, p < 0.05) after 12 months of follow-up. No evidence suggests that training alone lowers the rate of pain growth over the workday (b= 0.29, p > 0.20). In economic analyses, the chair-with-training intervention is associated with productivity improvements of $354 per worker per day and has a benefit to cost ratio of 22:1.

Learning Objectives:

• How to design an intervention study to examine office ergonomics.
• The costs and benefits of an office ergonomics intervention

Keywords: Ergonomics, IOM

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.