This series of short informative case studies looks at a range of policy level initiatives across Europe and beyond aiming to prevent and manage work-related MSDs. The studies focus on achievements, factors contributing to their success and challenges encountered, and transferability to other...

Workers in the construction industry perform physically demanding work. The physical strain is often high. This can lead to complaints to the neck, shoulder and back, and thus even to sickness absence and disability. Almost half of the absenteeism in the construction industry is caused by these...

This website offers free tools to assess the risks of physical work load and a 5-step approach to guide during the process of tackling the present issues.

On this website, several tools intended to help / guide companies to assess and prevent physical load. The tools presented are: Hand-arm vibration exposure calculator ; NIOSH method, factsheets on both physical load and sitting, and a tool on how to determine a policy on physical load.

Physically demanding work can have nasty consequences for the body of an employee. There are many different ways to deal with physically demanding work. In these case stories about people who have been in contact with physically demanding work tell how they have dealt with it.

In greenhouse horticulture, cultivation of strawberries is done on high racks, so-called gullies. The strawberry plants are at a height of 150-160 cm. To pull the blossoms through and clear out the plants, the workers usually walk on 30 cm high stilts. Because of the height and resulting insecurity...

This publication for Slovenian workers in 2007 is a part of two related campaigns to prevent musculoskeletal disorders in the European trade unions and the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work in Bilbao. In this publication, the European trade unions include the true causes of...