ERIN: A Practical Tool for Assessing Exposure to Risks Factors for Work-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders

Abstract

The prevention of work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) has become one of the greatest of daily challenges that faces ergonomics professionals. One of the actions carried out as part of prevention is the assessment of exposure to WMSDs factors. To date, many different ergonomic assessment methods have been developed. However, in many cases, the correct use of these methods is conditioned by having personnel with high training and experience in ergonomics, which is scarce, mainly in Latin American countries, where there is a presumption of a greater presence of WMSDs risk factors. For this reason, a necessity of having practical methods to evaluate a wide variety of tasks and generate improvement actions has been identified and stated in these countries. In this paper, Evaluación del Riesgo Individual (Individual Risk Assessment) (ERIN) method is presented, which can be used by non-expert personnel in the ergonomic assessment of tasks. ERIN has proven to be easy to learn, easy to use, requires little training time and is a useful tool in identifying opportunities for ergonomic improvement. Finally, a case study showing how to evaluate a task with the ERIN method is included and some results of studies carried out to evaluate the reliability, validity and usability of the method are mentioned.