Biomechanical Risk Factors for Musculoskeletal Disorders: What’s New?
By Blake McGowan, CPE
As a practicing certified professional ergonomist (CPE), one of my main jobs is to talk with safety professionals and engineers about the workplace risk factors that lead to musculoskeletal disorders.
I teach EHS professionals about the biomechanical risk factors of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) and their associated threshold values, which are incorporated into common MSD risk assessment tools such as ACGIH’s threshold limit value (TLV) for hand-activity level (HAL), the NIOSH Lifting Equation and the Snook & Ciriello psychophysical guidelines for pushing, pulling and carrying activities.
