Prioritization of Risk for Musculoskeletal Injuries in the Office Workplace

Abstract

In the process for evaluation of workstations, a preliminary step that is often required is to prioritize jobs in terms of risk for development of musculoskeletal disorders. This may involve a review of existing injury/illness data, and/or use of a short checklist or questionnaire. In response to a need to prioritize a large number of office jobs in a major chemical company, a method for categorizing the jobs into very high, high, moderate and low exposure groups for further evaluation was developed. A short yes/no checklist containing questions that are easy to understand by the users and are related to physical ergonomics hazards in the office environment formed the basis of the method. Each question was assigned a value on a scale of 1 to 10 in terms of relative risk, based on findings in the literature and practical experience. A consensus was reached by the three authors in assigning this value. Total scores for each of the computer and desk work sections of the checklist are determined and combined with information on total exposure and continuous exposure over the workday to calculate the final exposure group.