Do Low Back Belts Actually Help?

Literally millions of workers in all types of jobs wear low back support belts day in and day out. Hundreds of corporations encourage or even mandate their constant usage by their employees. Most lumberyards or hardware stores that you enter have clerks wearing these belts. Worker's compensation boards, occupational health groups, health and safety organizations and industry safety standard organizations around the world strongly encourage their use supposedly to help prevent the occurrence of back problems. However, the question remains do they help?

Most professionals working in or knowledgeable about the field of lower back pain would answer with a resoundingly positive answer. Its not that they'd be wrong, however, a new study of 9000 workers from Wal-Mart stores in 30 US states has found that there was no benefit to wearing a back support belt.

To quote from the article which appeared recently in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA, 2000; 284(21):2727-32): "Results based on these multiple analyses all converge to a common conclusion: back belt use is not associated with reduced incidence of back injury claims or low back pain in material handlers,"

The authors make the dubious statement that back belts are more of a fashion statement or "option in apparel" than a protective device. As if anyone would choose to wear a large, clumsy, hot, black belt as something "cool". Safety organizations promoting employers to mandate the wearing of these belts often emphasize the premise that they are an inexpensive way to build job satisfaction in the "we care about you" genre. They also suggest that reduced worker's compensation claims will result. This appears not to be the case.

There have been 5 other similar studies over the past decade into the efficacy of lumbar belts and all have come to the same conclusions: that no significant differences in the incidence of lower back pain, lost days from work, compensation costs or injury claims could be found. These other studies had fewer subjects to study, ranging from 60 to 900; consequently, the examination of a larger group was needed.

There have been studies that have suggested that belts do help; however, the data was not as comprehensive as this latest one and they generally have failed to control for a variety of back pain risk factors. Factors that serve as strong predictors of occupational back pain and back injury claims are: poor job satisfaction, smoking, and a prior history of back injury.

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