The prevention of back pain from manual handling

About a quarter of 3-day plus accidents are associated with the manual handling of loads and about a half of these result in low back pain. In response to this major cause of injury, sickness absence and pain, legislation is curretly being prepared which will require employers to assess manual handling tasks and to reduce the amount of such handling required. Where it is not possible to remove the need for such handllng altogether, then steps must be taken to reduce the risk of injury. This paper briefly describes three approaches which have been promulgated: selection or screening, training and ergonomics It outlines each approach, concluding that a realistic solution to a specific problem may embody elements of all three.