NSC releases report on MSD prevention benchmarking survey

Itasca, IL — Improving methods of tracking musculoskeletal disorders, continuously monitoring and assessing physical risk factors, and sharing best practices can help workplace MSD prevention programs have real impact.

The National Safety Council highlights these findings in its recently released MSD Solutions Index Pledge Community Report. The inaugural report highlights where organizations that have signed the MSD Pledge are strongest and what opportunities for improvement exist. 

The MSD Pledge was launched in 2022, one year after the establishment of NSC’s MSD Solutions Lab, which began with funding from Amazon.

The report is based on a survey of 52 MSD Pledge members from various industries that asked about three pledge commitment subsections: risk reduction, safety culture, and innovation and collaboration. The respondents received an overall index result, as well as the results of each subsection. Each fell into one of five MSD prevention maturity levels: novice, reactive, advancing, proactive and innovating.

Most of the respondents landed in the proactive (46%) or advancing (39%) categories. More than half (54%) rated their workplace’s ability to prevent MSDs – the most common workplace injury – as either “very good” or “excellent.”

Other findings:

• 4 out of 5 of the respondents have some form of MSD prevention or ergonomics program in place, while 65% have methods to track MSDs in their organization.
• Nearly 90% of the respondents have methods for workers to share safety improvement suggestions, while about two-thirds regularly conduct employee perception surveys.
• The most common MSD risk factors reported: awkward postures/excessive bending or twists (54%), lifting or carrying (40%), and computer-related repetitive activities (35%).
• The body parts most impacted by MSDs: shoulder (58%), low back (58%), wrist (42%) and neck (33%).

“What gets measured gets managed, which is why collecting workplace data is critical to helping organizations mitigate MSDs,” said Paul Vincent, executive vice president of workplace practice at NSC. “Addressing the most common workplace injury on a global scale has never been done before, and initiatives like this help our entire safety community be better positioned to create safer outcomes for millions of workers worldwide.”