The prevalence of occupational exposure to ergonomic risk factors: A systematic review and meta-analysis from the WHO/ILO Joint Estimates of the Work-related Burden of Disease and Injury

•WHO and ILO are developing joint estimates of the work-related burden of disease.•Systematic review on prevalence of occupational exposure to ergonomic risk factors.•Occupational exposure to ergonomic risk factors is highly prevalent.•Pooled prevalence of occupational exposure in European region 0.76 (CI 0.69 to 0.84).•Main body evidence rated as low quality due to risk of bias and indirectness. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) are developing joint estimates of the work-related burden of disease and injury (WHO/ILO Joint Estimates), with contributions from a large network of experts. Evidence from mechanistic and human data suggests that occupational exposure to ergonomic (or physical) risk factors may cause osteoarthritis and other musculoskeletal diseases (excluding rheumatoid arthritis, gout, and back and neck pain). In this paper, we present a systematic review and meta-analysis of the prevalence of occupational exposure to physical ergonomic risk factors for estimating the number of disability-adjusted life years from these diseases that are attributable to exposure to this risk factor, for the development of the WHO/ILO Joint Estimates. We aimed to systematically review and meta-analyse estimates of the prevalence of occupational exposure to ergonomic risk factors for osteoarthritis and other musculoskeletal diseases. We searched electronic bibliographic databases for potentially relevant records from published and unpublished studies, including Ovid Medline, EMBASE, and CISDOC. We also searched electronic grey literature databases, Internet search engines and organizational websites; hand-searched reference list of previous systematic reviews and included study records; and consulted additional experts. We included working-age (≥15 years) workers in the formal and informal economy in any WHO and/or ILO Member State but excluded children (