Abstract
Scenario analyses were carried out on 229 back injuries occuring over two years in a large petro-chemical manufacturing complex. The patterns indicated that most injuries were a direct result of overexertion in performing a task. Materials handling was the most common task, accounting for 35% of the cases. Two other tasks also accounted for a substantial number of injuries: operating a valve (17%) and assembling or disassembling equipment (18%). A much less common but noteworthy set of scenarios indicated that many back injuries occur in situations where unexpected movement in the person-equipment interface takes place. Age and sex were not significant factors in back injury rates. A higher proportion of injuries were major (OSHA recordable) than is usually found for industrial accidents in general.
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