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A Controlled Trial Of An Educational Program To Prevent Low Back Injuries, Lawren H. Daltroy, Maura D. Iversen, Martin G. Larson, Robert Lew, Elizabeth Wright, James Ryan, Craig Zwerling, Anne H. Fossel, Matthew H. Liang

Maura Daly Iversen

Background: Low back injuries are common and costly, accounting for 15 to 25 percent of injuries covered by workers’ compensation and 30 to 40 percent of the payments made under that program. The high costs of injury, the lack of effective treatment, and the evidence that there are behavioral risk factors have led to widespread use of employee education programs that teach safe lifting and handling. The effectiveness of those programs, however, has received little rigorous evaluation. Methods: We evaluated an educational program designed to prevent low back injury in a randomized, controlled trial involving about 4000 postal workers. The …