Cumulative trauma disorders (CTD) constitute a significant occupational health problem generally agreed to be of multifactorial etiology. Research efforts have measured specific ergonomic components of jobs in order to identify major workrelated risk factors for CTD. Although age has been included among the individual risk factors also thought to play a role in CTD incidence, this relationship has received little attention, except in the treatment of age as a potential confounding variable. The potential interactive effect that increasing age might have on the relationship between ergonomic factors and CTD is also not known. The role of age as a risk factor is of particular concern in view of the increasing age of the U.S. work force. This study will therefore examine the association between age and CTD prevalence in an industrial population with varying levels of ergonomic stresses. This SERCA study will be performed on workers in a Maryland-based apparel industry. Production workers of two plants (566 workers) will be invited to participate; 450 are expected to take part. The median age of the workers is over 40 years old, ranging to over 66 years. CTD-related symptoms as well as diagnoses will be evaluated by questionnaire. Ergonomic factors will be analyzed for each worker by direct observation using a recently described technique, modified to include the lower extremities. Interaction between age and these factors will be assessed by multiple logistic regression techniques, controlling for other known risk factors. An additional goal will be the assessment of the use of existing standard production data and individual production data as a measure of the repetition component of the set of ergonomic exposures. This work is expected to form the basis for a future longitudinal study.
