New home center study supports back belts

DACK support belts do indeed I-lreduce back injuries, according to a new study of 36,000 Home Depot employees.

Conducted by researchers at University of California at Los Angeles, the study may rejuvenate sales of back supports, which have plunged since a government agency announced two years ago it could find no evidence that the devices worked.

The study found back support devices reduced low-back injuries by about one third among employees at 77 Home Depot locations in California.

The study, none of it funded by manufacturers, covered a variety of back support products. According to the results, workers over age 55 or under 25 benefited most from the supports. Women, although they performed the same tasks, benefited less than men.

Researchers compared the inci-

Backs Are Basic For Safety Programs

Managed material handling consists of two elements, according to Donald Rung of Lumber Insurance Companies. The first is a comprehensive review of all material handting exposures within your facility. At its most complete, this requires a review of how each class of product in your business is handled or manipulated from the time it is delivered from your supplier to the moment it is released to your customer.

The review should evaluate each product category in terrns of its size, weight and handling characteristics and make a determinafion as to the safest way to manipulate the product.

That determination may require:

(1) Use of forklift, pallet jack, handtruck or stock cart.

(2) lnvolvement of two or more employees.

(3) Storage of that product in a specific location allowing optimum safe access to and travel with the product.

(4) Use of power tail gate lifts on delivery trucks. dence of lower back injuries before and after the company made such belts mandatory for all store employees by 1992.

The second element is a mechanism that notifies all employees of the designated handling procedures for each product and reviews any new product category and assigns an appropriate material handling strategy. This managed material handling system reguires regular review to ensure that specific strategies are being followed.

Managing for safe lifting behaviors is critical to the long-terTn control of back strain/back injury exposure. In too many cases, employers assume that a one-time class in safe lifting techniques is sufficient.

While it is imporrant for employees to be trained in the fundamentals of safe lifting, this is of little value unless management and supervisory personnel are committed to correcting inappropriate lifting behavior and positively reinforcing proper lffiing behavior on a daily basis. They must purposely watch for opportunities to reinforce employees who are demonstrating safe lifting techniques.

Although Home Depot had no proof the devices worked, a spokesperson said, "we figured they couldn't hurt." Other employers discouraged workers from using the devices after the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in 1994, after reviewing the available scientific literature, concluded there wasn't sufficient proof to recommend that uninjured employees use the supports. Back belt sales, which reached eight million unirs in 1993, have fallen to four million last year.

Belt manufacturer Chase Ergonomics, Albuquerque, N.M., admitted the NIOSH report "really cast a pall over sales."

But NIOSH is anxious to find a remedy. "The economic costs of back

Story at a Glance

New research backs usefulness of safety corsets ...

36,000 workers at 77 Home Depots studied.

injuries are staggering," said NIOSH ergonomic director Lawrence Fine. He said a recent study showed the average cost of a low-back disorder is $8,300, more than double the average workplace claim.

According to government estimates, one-fourth of all workers' compensation claims paid by U.S. employers are lower back injuries, costing $11 billion in 1990.

The UCLA researchers advise that the question of the usefulness of back supports will not be settled until their results are duplicated in other companies and industries. NIOSH recently initiated a study of employees at WalMart stores.

Itr/lTH housewraps becoming increasingly common ln Y V a wider range of construction applications, manufacturers are beginning to reformulate their multi-purpose products for specific uses.

Basically, housewraps provide three at-times-contradictory benefits: they cut down air infiltration, while providing moisture protection (keeping water from getting into a home) and breathability (letting moisture out of a home). Manufacturers are beginning to manipulate those three variables to produce different products with different strengths for specialized applications.

While a number of manufacturers are developing such products, the first out of the gate is DuPont with their new Tyvek HomeWrap. The new non-perforated, spun-bonded polyolefin sheeting reportedly is 507o better at resisting water than their original housewrap, while providing twice as much air resistance for improved energy efficiency.

A new manufacturing/finishing process allows properties of the sheeting to be reconfigured, for the critical needs of each application. HomeWrap was designed specifically to protect against bulk water penetration and to protect the