Back injuries account for one in five workplace injuries, and 75% of workplace-related back injuries occur during a lifting task.
Every year, two million back injuries occur across the U.S.; roughly half of them – one million – are back injuries sustained in the workplace.
Back pain becomes chronic and disabling in roughly 5% of cases, and up to 44% of people who initially recover have a reoccurrence within a year. Then once you’ve had two episodes of back pain in a year, you’re three times more likely to experience the third episode.
Put all that together, back injuries are a significant source of disability. After all, 5% of a million is 50,000 chronic and disabling cases of back pain.
The consequences are expensive for employers – in workers’ compensation claims, days away from work, and lost productivity.
So one of the most boring topics we will cover is one of the most important ones. Try to stay awake….