Expert Research Support

The CDC (NIOSH) is soliciting expert research support on the potential benefit and risk exposure associated with construction workers’ use of passive exoskeletons to perform manual material handling tasks on construction elevators. Construction worker tasks often involve high force exertion and other repetitive handling tasks during construction elevator ingress/egress. Such activity is strongly associated with musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) and slips/trips/falls (STFs). Over the past few years, exoskeletons have been adopted and used for the prevention of musculoskeletal injuries by an increasing number of companies. To date, there have been some biomechanical studies using electromyography (EMG) measures, motion analyses, and modeling techniques to assess use applications for passive exoskeletons (Kim et al. 2018; Picchiotti et al. 2019; Weston et al. 2018). These studies have found that use of passive exoskeletons at ground level can reduce MSDs. Unlike working at ground level, construction elevators are flexible and workers using them can experience postural instability during ingress/egress activities or manual material handling while working at elevation (Pan et al. 2012; Pan et al. 2017). No research, however, has been conducted on MSDs and STFs or additional postural instability associated with using exoskeletons on elevated work platforms that are routinely used in dynamic construction operations. The usefulness and benefit of passive exoskeletons for construction workers frequently working on elevated work platforms remains unclear. This information is very important for the construction trades, the OSHA Construction Directorate, and related consensus standards.