ABSTRACT
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in the United States described physical stressors and workplace conditions that pose a risk of injury or illness to a worker’s musculoskeletal system as the main characteristics of jobs and pressures leading to musculoskeletal strains in workers. A study of stress and recurrent low back pain among Finnish planners, welders, and plumbers found that older planners reported the most physical exhaustion and musculoskeletal problems. Some of the effect may be mediated by influences on help seeking behavior, but the results also suggest that stress may produce changes in the physical state of the musculoskeletal system. Repetitive lifting, twisting, and carrying, plus the heavy weights, put check-in workers at risk of musculoskeletal injuries, low back damage in particular. Workers may experience musculoskeletal pain that is induced by non-work-related activities, and which may worsen, even to the level of a disabling injury, due to work-related factors.
