Guidance and research
This page provides useful information on where to find out more about MSDs and how to prevent them.
Guidance and regulations - available now from HSE Books
General priced guidance:
- Manual Handling: Guidance on the Regulations (ISBN 071762823X)
- Upper Limb Disorders in the Workplace (ISBN 0717619788)
- Management of Health and Safety at Work (ISBN 0717624889)
- Workplace Health, Safety and Welfare (ISBN 0717604136)
- Work with display screen equipment: guidance on regulations (ISBN 0717625826).
- The law on VDUs: an easy guide (ISBN 0717626024)
- Manual handling : solutions you can handle (ISBN 0717606937)
- A pain in your workplace? Ergonomic problems and solutions (ISBN 0717606686)
Sector specific priced guidance:
- Handling home care (ISBN 0717622282)
- Manual handling in the health services (ISBN 0717612481)
- Caring for cleaners (ISBN 0717626822)
- Manual handling in drinks delivery (ISBN 0717607313)
- Backs for the future : safe manual handling in construction (ISBN 0717611221)
- Moving food and drinks : manual handling solutions for the food and drinks industries (ISBN 0717617319)
- Well handled : off-shore manual handling solutions (ISBN 0717613852)
- The Back Book (2nd edition) (ISBN 0 1170 2949 1)
- Get Back Active (video) (ISBN 0 1170 2940 8)
- The Back Pain Guide by Simon Crompton. ( ISBN 1 8600 0159 9)
- Back Care at Work: An ergonomic guide to Manual Handling (ISBN 0 9530 582 6336)
- Occupational Health Guidelines for the Management of Low Back Pain at Work: Evidence Review and Recommendations ( ISBN 1 8601 6131 6)
Free leaflet guidance on:
- Are you making the best use of lifting and handling aids [PDF 400KB]
- Display Screen Equipment [1.4MB]
- Manual Handling
- Aching Arms (or RSI) in small businesses [PDF 312KB]
- Checkouts and Musculoskeletal Disorders INDG269
- FIS33- Roll cages and wheeled racks in the food and drink industries: Reducing manual handling injuries [PDF 27KB]
- INDG143(rev2) - Getting to grips with manual handling
- INDG383 - Manual Handling Assessment Charts (MAC)[PDF 190KB]
- Online tutorial on how to use the MAC Assessment tool
- INDG373 - A guide for new and expectant mothers that work [PDF 240KB]
- INDG398 - Are you making the best use of lifting and handling aids [PDF 439KB]
The information from Back in Work: managing back pain in the workplace (INDG333) has been updated and can be found on the back pain section.
Statistics on Work-related Musculoskeletal Disorders
Can be found at www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/disease.htm
Relevant research
HSE has published a large amount of research material related to MSDs which can be found listed under the following headings.
- Research Agenda [PDF 140KB]
- Research Report 228 – Review of the risks associated with pushing and pulling heavy loads
Search for research on:
- Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs)
- Upper limb disorders (ULDs)
- Work related upper limb disorders (WRULDs)
- Display screen equipment (DSE)
- Visual display units (VDUs)
- Back pain research
- Manual handling research
Further sources of information
- Prosecutions database
- Notices database
- Information contained in Local Authority Circulars
- Risk assessment
- Useful links page
/ Arabic
/ Bengali
/ Chinese
/ Farsi
/ Gujarati
/ Hindi
/ Kurdish
/ Pashto
/ Punjabi
/ Tamil
/ Urdu