Sitting as a hazard

Back pain is a major problem amongst the growing number of seated workers, and enormous medical and design effort goes into reducing it. Improvements are evident, but the problem does not go away. The paper argues that the seat shape itself is a major hazard, causing initial loadings which can exceed those from the work. Research to demonstrate this has been growing over some 50 years, but until it is incorporated into chair design a serious reduction in back problems is unlikely.