Physical Exposure Assessment in a Large Prospective Upper Extremity Musculoskeletal Disorders Study

Abstract

This paper describes a battery of physical exposure assessment methods used in a large prospective upper extremity musculoskeletal disorders study. Different from some previous prospective studies, this study collects health and physical exposure data for each study subject rather than at a group level. Subjects are recruited from different job categories based on their hand activity exposure categories. Multiple exposure assessment methods are used to measure job physical exposures such as force, repetition, and work posture. This will allow us to compare the sensitivity of different exposure assessment methods in predicting the risk for upper extremity musculoskeletal disorders. Procedures have also been taken to monitor inter-observer reliability for some observational analyses. During the first year of the study, baseline exposure measurements have been collected from 607 volunteers at 11 different worksites. Follow-up measurements have also been collected in these worksites. Whenever a participant has a significant job change, a new exposure assessment is conducted at the new job. This paper will primarily discuss the various exposure assessment methods used in this study, and use some preliminary results to demonstrate some of the data reduction methods.