Summary

This study is part of a sequence of projects whose goal is to implement a sustainable musculoskeletal disorder (MSD) prevention culture in a large manufacturing company. This first step consisted of developing a systemic portrait of the company.The authors noted a very high prevalence of MSDs; 78% of the workers reported having had pain rather frequently or constantly in at least one body region in the last 12 months. Furthermore, close to 70% of the workers said that they were open to job rotation, a form of organization that the management wanted to implement. The obstacle most frequently reported was the stress related to the mastery of several jobs.This first portrait provides a better understanding of the population and the company’s characteristics. It also gives a basis for comparison for the portraits that will be produced after the intervention project, in order to evaluate the impacts. Finally, this portrait is used to orient the preventive actions that the research team intends to carry out.The results presented in this report are specific to the studied company, but the authors believe that their approach is applicable to any study aiming to characterize a workplace before starting a prevention project.