Report of the workshop on musculoskeletal disorders at the Japan-China-Korea Joint Conferences on Occupational Health: preface.

Occupational Health has been annually organized with the objective of making a contribution to the advancement of occupational health through academic and practical knowledge exchanges in the field as well as fostering the friendship among Japan, Korea and China. collaborated to make it successful 1). In 2000, China officially joined the conference with the approval of the steering committee and the general assembly during the 12th conference held in Okayama. Subsequently, the 13th conference was held in Beijing in the following year 2). Since then, the three countries have provided the venue in rotation 3, 4). In 2007, the 18th conference was organized in Nagoya by Norihide Tachi as its chairman 5). The following members contributed to the success of this conference as representatives and secretaries for the three countries: Toshiteru Okubo of the Radiation Effects Research Foundation as the representative for Japan and concurrently serving as both the Chinese representative and secretary. A workshop takes place annually prior to the conference with the same topic to be discussed for a period of three years. The subject for 2005–2007 was " musculoskeletal disorders " and many researchers reported the achievements of their studies. A summary account of this topic is offered, concerning the presentations given during the 3 yr, with an emphasis on those during the last two years. The workshop in 2005 was held from 2–4 June at the Furama Hotel in Dalian, China 6). Hidemaro Takeyama reported on the occupational health management approach in the prevention of work-related musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) at the workplace based on the new ISO Technical Specification. It was stressed that managers and workers in enterprises could develop action plans to reduce musculoskeletal workload using action-oriented checklists and group discussions , implement the action plans, evaluate the risk reduction activities yearly, and thus proceed to development of new action plans. It was reported that this approach helped managers and workers identify relevant points of musculoskeletal workload and in developing effective action plans on their own initiative. Li-Hua He measured the levels of serum creatine phophokinase (CK), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and their isoenzymes in animal models with a static load applied to the lower back and in an epidemiologic study. By combining both results of the animal experiment and the epidemiologic study, it was suggested that the total activity of CK in serum increased during static load, and the change of CK-MM 3 /CK-MM 1 …