Estimation of net-costs for prevention of occupational low back pain: three case studies from the US.

Background: Occupational low back pain (OLBP) is widespread in industrialized societies. We present a model to estimate the net economic costs of investments in ergonomic interventions at the company level to reduce work-related low back pain.

Methods: Costs of interventions are defined by incorporating not only the costs of investment of equipment and labor, but also by taking into account the avoided costs of lost work time, medical care costs, and productivity improvements. In the net-cost model, all costs are annualized and are calculated at the level of an individual organization. Three case studies have been performed based on data from three companies in the manufacturing sector of the United States using the above approach.

Results: The net-cost estimates for the three case studies consistently show that ergonomic interventions applied appropriately can result in substantial cost savings for the companies.

Conclusions: Although generalizing on the basis of three case studies is not ideal, our analyses show that it might be in the economic interest of management to play a more active role to prevent back pain. Gathering useful retrospective cost data, even on interventions deemed effective by corporate innovators, proved to be extremely difficult. We conclude that it is essential to incorporate a protocol for collecting cost and effectiveness data in the standard operating procedures of ergonomists and companies introducing such innovation. We intend to validate the net-cost model for the monitoring and reporting of such data through prospective studies in a variety of industrial settings and in countries at various stages of economic development.