back belts take the back seat - Brief Article

We've all seen those strange-looking back belts that employees--from Home Depot to WalMart, etc.--are wearing these-days. Employers have been trying to address the fact that low back pain accounted for $8.8 billion in workers' compensation payments in 1995 and that there were 279,507 overexertion-caused back injuries that resulted in lost work days in 1998.

Employers went on the offensive. Four million commercial back belts were purchased in 1995. Well they don't seem to be doing a darned thing, says a recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Looking at 13,873 material-handling employees at 160 stores in 30 states, the authors found that "neither frequent back use nor a store policy that required belt use" reduced the number of back injury claims or low back pain. Back to the drawing board.

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