ABSTRACT
Organisations regularly face challenging nancial decisions in their effort to get the most out of the funds they have available for their operations. This is as true in the realm of ergonomics/human factors investments as it is for other areas of organisational activities. At a broader, societal level, consideration of the resource implications of alternative programmes is equally as critical, as is the distribution of costs and consequences of programmes across the various stakeholders affected. Consequently, complete information on the resource implications (both costs and consequences) of alternatives from different stakeholder perspectives is critical to inform decision making in the realm of ergonomics/human factors. Essentially, economic evaluation is an integral part of programme evaluation, whether the programme under review is focussed on physical or mental health and well-being of workers. Some types of outcomes may pose more measurement challenges for economic analysis, particularly in areas where measurement tools to capture productivity impacts
Introduction ....................................................................................................................................907 Negative Consequences of Poor Work System Design: The Burden of MSDs .............................909
