Personal Injury News

No Evidence That Back Belts Reduce Injury In Landmark Study

Washington, DC—In the largest study of its kind ever conducted, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC)'s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) found no evidence that back belts reduce back injury or back pain for retail workers who lift or move merchandise, according to results published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Dec. 6th issue.

The study, conducted over a two-year period, found no statistically significant difference between the incidence rate of workers' compensation claims for job-related back injuries among employees who reported using back belts usually every day, and the incidence rate of such claims among employees who reported never using back belts or using them no more than once or twice a month.

Similarly, no statistically significant difference was found in comparing the incidence of self-reported back pain among workers who reported using back belts every day, with the incidence among workers who reported never using back belts or using them no more than once or twice a month. Neither did the study find a statistically significant difference between the rate of back injury claims among employees in stores that required the use of back belts, and the rate of such claims in stores where back belt use was voluntary.

Back belts, also called back supports or abdominal belts, resemble corsets. In recent years, they have been widely used in numerous industries to prevent worker injury during lifting. There are more than 70 types of industrial back belts, including the lightweight, stretchable nylon style used by workers in this study. Approximately four million back belts were purchased for workplace use in 1995, the most recent year for which data were available. The results of the new study are consistent with NIOSH's previous finding, reported in 1994, that there is insufficient scientific evidence that wearing back belts protects workers from the risk of job-related back injury. Read more at cdc.gov

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