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Introduction: Musculoskeletal Disorders (MSDs) are a major cause of occupational health issues. Implementing an effective MSD prevention strategy in the workplace requires the characterization and monitoring of workers’ musculoskeletal health based on reliable and reproducible indicators. The objective of this study was to develop an innovative mobile application designed to map musculoskeletal complaints and to test its implementation in an industrial site specialized in meat packaging.

Methods: The application development process followed several key steps:

1. Formation of a multidisciplinary working group (site director, HR manager, occupational physician, university researchers specialized in locomotion and applied work physiology, employee representatives, and a software developer) under the coordination of a doctoral student embedded in the company.
2. Selection of the Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire as a scientifically validated monitoring tool.
3. Integration of modules designed to characterize individual worker characteristics and work conditions.
4. Development of the application on a company-owned internal server, ensuring data anonymization and compliance with data protection regulations (CNIL, GDPR).
5. Presentation and refinement of the tool through feedback from the working group.
6. Testing on 235 employees using a combined approach (individual interviews + data entry via tablet).
7. Data analysis and result dissemination.

Results: The tool was tested over a six-month period. Out of 300 employees at the site, 235 participated in the study and completed the questionnaire via the mobile application during an individual interview lasting 10 to 20 minutes. Among these participants, 86% reported at least one musculoskeletal pain episode in the past 12 months. The three most affected body regions were: Lower back (56% of participants); Shoulders (33%) and Neck (21%). Among the 13 company sectors, the most impacted were: “Processed products”, “Labeling”, and “Forming”.

Discussion: The developed tool enabled the mapping of musculoskeletal complaints for 78% of the workforce and identified three priority sectors for preventive actions:

1. Training: implementation of an on-the-job training approach (AFEST in French).
2. Organizational measures: promotion of job rotation, workforce increase, and implementation of workplace warm-up exercises.
3. Technical measures: provision of adapted equipment and automation of certain tasks.

Conclusion: Using a mobile application to map musculoskeletal pain, combined with individual interviews, represents a promising approach to improving MSD prevention in the workplace. This tool has facilitated the establishment of a structured and actionable prevention indicator shared by both employees and management. Since 2024, the tool has been deployed every three months to assess the impact of preventive actions in other sectors. In the long term, it will support data modeling to refine etiopathogenic models of MSDs.

[1] Kuorinka et al., 1987.