Relationship between ergonomic exposures and work-related musculoskeletal disorders of assembly workers in assembly manufacturing enterprises / 环境与职业医学

ABSTRACT

Background China's manufacturing industry is still labor-intensive, and assembly employees in manufacturing industry are facing a great risk of work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs). Objective To investigate and analyze the prevalence and distribution of WMSDs among assembly workers in manufacturing enterprises and explore the relationship between WMSDs and ergonomic exposure factors such as posture load and mental load. Methods From July to September 2017, by convenient sampling, a cross-sectional survey was conducted to select 670 workers engaged in electronic accessories assembly and railway vehicle manufacturing in three manufacturing enterprises in two cities in northern China as the research participants. The posture load assessment was based on the Chinese Musculoskeletal Questionnaire independently developed by our research group. The mental load assessment was based on a revised Chinese version of the Subjective Workload Assessment Technique. An unconditional logistic regression model was used to explore the relationship between ergonomic exposure and WMSDs. Results The overall prevalence rate of WMSDs was 39.6% (265/670) with 43.8% in males and 25.2% in females; the highest prevalence rate was 47.7% in the group aged 40 years and over. The prevalence rate of WMSDs in the electronic accessories assembly workers was 16.9%, that in the railway vehicle manufacturing workers was 57.3%, and the difference was statistically significant (\begin{document}$ {\chi