Estimating the global burden of low back pain attributable to combined occupational exposures

Abstract

Background: There is little information about the global burden of non-traumatic low back pain (LBP) attributable to the effects of physical and psychosocial occupational stressors.

Methods: Based on a review of the epidemiological evidence, occupation-specific relative risks were used to compute attributable proportions by age, gender, and geographical sub-region for the economically active population aged 15 and older. The reference group was professional/administrative workers; other risk categories were Low, clerical and sales; Moderate, operators (production workers) and service; and High, farmers.

Results: Worldwide, 37% of LBP was attributed to occupation, with twofold variation across regions. The attributable proportion was higher for men than women, because of higher participation in the labor force and in occupations with heavy lifting or whole-body vibration. Work-related LBP was estimated to cause 818,000 disability-adjusted life years lost annually.

Conclusions: Occupational exposures to ergonomic stressors represent a substantial source of preventable back pain. Specific research on children is needed to quantify the global burden of disease due to child labor.