A prospective study of back belts for prevention of back pain and injury

Despite scientific uncertainties about effectiveness, wearing back belts in the hopes of preventing costly and disabling low back injury in employees is becoming common in the workplace.

To evaluate the effectiveness of using back belts in reducing back injury claims and low back pain.

Prospective cohort study. From April 1996 through April 1998, we identified material-handling employees in 160 new retail merchandise stores (89 required back belt use; 71 had voluntary back belt use) in 30 states (from New Hampshire to Michigan in the north and from Florida to Texas in the south); data collection ended December 1998, median follow-up was 6(1/2) months.

A referred sample of 13,873 material handling employees provided 9377 baseline interviews and 6311 (67%) follow-up interviews; 206 (1.4%) refused baseline interview.

Incidence rate of material-handling back injury workers' compensation claims and 6-month incidence rate of self-reported low back pain.

Neither frequent back belt use nor a belt-requirement store policy was significantly associated with back injury claim rates or self-reported back pain. Rate ratios comparing back injury claims of those who reported wearing back belts usually every day and once or twice a week vs those who reported wearing belts never or once or twice a month were 1.22 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.87-1.70) and 0.95 (95% CI, 0.56-1.59), respectively. The respective odds ratios for low back pain incidence were 0.97 (95% CI, 0.83-1.13) and 0.92 (95% CI, 0.73-1.16).

In the largest prospective cohort study of back belt use, adjusted for multiple individual risk factors, neither frequent back belt use nor a store policy that required belt use was associated with reduced incidence of back injury claims or low back pain. JAMA. 2000;284:2727-2732.