Ergonomic Assessment of Backpack Carriage among High School Students

摘要

Ergonomically unsuited backpacks tend to cause spine and bone structure based dysfunctionalities, especially on an average high school student's fast developing skeleton. Carrying heavy backpacks by school students should be avoided to prevent musculoskeletal disorders. In this paper, we study the ergonomic risks among high school students in a local school district. The research includes literature review, survey design, data collection, data analysis, digital human modeling (DHM), and recommendations. The survey includes 21 different questions under three categories: human physical characteristics, health history, and school and backpack information. DHM simulations are created to assess the impact of the different factors such as backpack weight, carrying position, and human physical characteristics. The results provide recommendations for avoiding ergonomic risks caused by carrying backpacks among high school students.