Effectiveness of ergonomics interventions to prevent musculoskeletal disorders: Beware of what you ask

As ergonomics has grown and expanded, one area of research and practice that has become more prominent is that dealing with musculoskeletal disorders. For various reasons, the increased scrutiny on the effectiveness of ergonomics for preventing musculoskeletal disorders has led to a recent boom in intervention effectiveness research. Although this has considerable intuitive appeal, several reasons why some intervention research can be detrimental to the field are outlined. The fact that many situations will lead to statistical insignificance or weak evidence has implications for creating a negative bias in the literature. The myriad barriers to intervention research often lead to murky answers to the omnibus hypothesis that an intervention is effective, whereas an alternative, of showing productivity gains instead of decreased morbidity, increases the risk that interventions become ergonomic pitfalls if the productivity gains result in increased throughput rates.Relevance to IndustryThe evaluations of intervention effectiveness influence whether some ergonomic interventions are selected and implemented in industry. The potential pitfalls when researching interventions and implications for ergonomics are discussed.