Ergonomics: Making Tools Fit the Worker : Health: Labor is demanding it, companies are implementing it and governments are regulating it.

NEW YORK —  Make the tool fit the worker. Ergonomics. It hardly sounds revolutionary, but it’s revolutionizing the workplace.

Chairs for proper posture, adjustable computer stations, assembly lines at the right height, and tools that don’t vibrate seem sensible. Yet, 5 million Americans have injuries that stem from improper ergonomics, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health said.

“An ergonomic problem is as likely to get you as everything else put together,” said Roger Stephens, head of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s ergonomic division.

Ergonomics has become a major workplace concern of the 1990s. Labor is demanding it, companies are implementing it, and governments are regulating it. And some are making a profit from the problem. As in all fields, snake-oil salesmen exist, but work is underway to accredit experts.

Automation speeds the pace of work, and repetition of an awkward or overextended motion can stress the hands, arms, back or legs. By the next decade, half of all workers will have jobs with the potential for repetitive-motion injury, NIOSH said.

In the past, a person using an old-fashioned typewriter would stop typing to make corrections, change paper or look up the spelling of a word. A person on a word processor has none of those built-in breaks.

The consequences of poor ergonomics can be debilitating.

Sandra Peddie was an assistant editor at New York Newsday on Long Island when a repetitive strain injury in her forearms forced her to take disability leave in 1990, she said.

“At my worst I couldn’t lift up a teacup. I couldn’t dress myself,” said Peddie, 37. She said pain still prevents her from driving or turning doorknobs. She tried to go back to work on a voice-activated computer, but found it too painful.

Her case is extreme, but repetitive injuries in 1982 accounted for 21% of occupational illnesses. By 1990, they accounted for 56%, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said.

As a result, “ergonomics is becoming an integral part of an overall safety program within a number of large companies,” said Marilyn Joyce, president of the Joyce Institute, a Seattle-based ergonomics consultant. “Just as safety people have to deal with fire hazards or chemical hazards . . . they now are having to look at the tools that people are using.”

Textron Inc. implemented ergonomic changes in 1989 in hopes of reducing back injuries at plants that built helicopters and fasteners, said company spokesman Raymond W. Caine Jr. Safety and production supervisors were also trained to look for potential ergonomic hazards, he said.

A year into the program, the number of back injuries was down 10% and productivity increased in some cases, Caine said.

Toy maker Milton Bradley Co. started an ergonomics program for its employees in 1990.

“We want it to be a good environment for our workers and it’s not a good environment if you have aches and pains because of what you’re doing,” said spokesman Mark Morris.

Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom have ergonomic standards for industry. Some think the United States is moving too slowly in making proper ergonomics a workplace requirement.

Last July, the AFL-CIO and 30 of its largest unions asked the Labor Department to issue emergency standards to protect workers from repetitive-motion injuries.

“The solutions to these problems are at hand, but the tools of enforcement are not,” William Wynn, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers, said in a letter accompanying the petition.

OSHA issued guidelines in 1990 to help protect workers in the meat industry, where cumulative trauma disorders are most frequent. The agency plans to start gathering public comment this spring and hopes to issue an industry standard in three to five years, Stephens said.

On local levels, San Francisco adopted legislation governing the use of video display terminals, and some states, including California and Washington, are considering the issue.

Ergonomics--the study of people adapting to their environment--is nothing new. The concept was used decades ago in the design of such things as airplane cockpits. Several universities, including the University of Michigan, Ohio State and New York University, offer ergonomics programs.

Today, there are nearly 5,000 members of the Human Factors Society, an organization of ergonomists that accredits graduate-level ergonomics programs.

A certification procedure is being established for self-proclaimed ergonomists, who have mostly engineering or psychology backgrounds. Accreditation will begin in March, said Dieter Jahns, executive director of the Board of Certification in Professional Ergonomists.

For those who experience the tingling, aching, pain or numbness associated with repetitive-motion injuries, scores of wrist splints, back supports, elbow braces and other devices that purport to ease or prevent injuries have flooded the market.

And orthopedists are becoming better able to deal with the problem.