Objective : To assess the contribution of work-organisational and personal factors to the prevalence of workrelated musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) among garment workers in Los Angeles. Methods : This is a cross-sectional study of self-reported musculoskeletal symptoms among 520 sewing machine operators from 13 garment industry sewing shops. Detailed information on work-organisational factors, personal factors, and musculoskeletal symptoms were obtained in face-to-face interviews. The outcome of interest, upper body WMSD, was defined as a worker experiencing moderate or severe musculoskeletal pain. Unconditional logistic regression models were adopted to assess the association between both work-organisational factors and personal factors and the prevalence of musculoskeletal pain. Results : The prevalence of moderate or severe musculoskeletal pain in the neck/shoulder region was 24% and for distal upper extremity it was 16%. Elevated prevalence of upper body pain was associated with age less than 30 years, female gender, Hispanic ethnicity, being single, having a diagnosis of a MSD or a systemic illness, working more than 10 years as a sewing machine operator, using a single sewing machine, work in large shops, higher work-rest ratios, high physical exertion, high physical isometric loads, high job demand, and low job satisfaction. Conclusion : Work-organisational and personal factors were associated with increased prevalence of moderate or severe upper body musculoskeletal pain among garment workers. Owners of sewing companies may be able to reduce or prevent WMSDs among employees by adopting rotations between different types of workstations thus increasing task variety; by either shortening work periods or increasing rest periods to reduce the work-rest ratio; and by improving the work-organisation to control psychosocial stressors. The findings may guide prevention efforts in the garment sector and have important public health implications for this workforce of largely immigrant labourers. E mployment in the garment industry rose worldwide in the late 1990s to approximately 11 million workers in 1998. 1 In the United States, over 300 000 garment workers were employed in 2005 to sew apparel.
2California is home to the largest garment production centre in the United States, with the majority of the garment shops located in the Los Angeles basin. Altogether these shops employ over 144 000 sewing machine operators, the majority of whom are minimum wage, unrepresented, immigrant women.
3A typical sewing workstation consists of a sewing table with a built-in electric sewing machine, a non-adjustable household chair, and cardboard boxes/cart to hold incoming fabrics and sewn products. Production sewing is a highly repetitive, highprecision task that requires the worker to lean forward to see the point of operation, while simultaneously using the hands to control fabric feed to the needle, and continuously operate foot and knee pedals (fig 1). [4][5][6] In the United States, sewing machine operators are in the top ...
