The future of research in understanding and controlling work-related low back disorders

Our knowledge of low back disorder (LBD) causation has progressed well over the years with in-depth understanding accelerating in the traditional disciplines of biomechanics, psychology, psychophysics, psychosocial, physiology, genetics, organizational psychology and rehabilitation. However, each of these disciplines has studied LBD causality in isolation of other disciplines. The underlying assumption is that each discipline can fully explain causality and each discipline is treated as if it were mutually exclusive and exhaustive of the other disciplines. Hence, the body of knowledge has progressed along research silos where we have in-depth knowledge along given research tracks that are defined by the boundaries of the discipline. Furthermore, a wealth of knowledge has been amassed within each of these research silos. How can they all be correct if they are indeed mutually exclusive and exhaustive? The answer is: they cannot be. This brief review of the state-of-the art in LBD research applied to ergonomics, suggests that instead of observing LBD through the myopic lens of each discipline, we need to begin to view LBD causality as a system. Recent work attempting to understand the interaction between these traditional disciplines has demonstrated that many of the findings along these silos are really interrelated and can be explained in terms of changes in the biomechanical loading at the tissue level. It is argued that further efforts to understand these interactions represent the next level of understanding causality of LBDs.