Back Injuries and Prevention Stats & Facts

Facts

1. Worldwide, back pain is the single leading cause of disability, preventing many people from engaging in work as well as other everyday activities.
2. Back pain is one of the most common reasons for missed work. One-half of all working Americans admit to having back pain symptoms each year.
3. Most cases of back pain are mechanical or non-organic—meaning they are not caused by serious conditions, such as inflammatory arthritis, infection, fracture or cancer.
4. Most people with low back pain recover, however reoccurrence is common and for small percentage of people the condition will become chronic and disabling.

Stats

We spend so much time of our lives at work and every year there are high numbers of work-related back injuries reported:

• More than one million back injuries are sustained in the workplace annually.
• According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), a back-related injury accounts for one in every five injuries and illnesses at work.
• BLS ran a survey and discovered that 80% of these injuries were to the lower back and, unsurprisingly, 75% of these happened during lifting tasks.
• A back injury is the top cause of a ‘job-related disability’ and a large contributor to missed work days.