Seminar Abstract:
Low back disorders (LBDs) are a common world-wide problem that leads to disability, pain and excessive medical costs. While one can find volumes of information relating to the casual pathways associated with LBDs, our rates of LBDs have been increasing over the decades and the treatment costs have increased by over 300 percent in recent years. This situation begs the question: What do we really know about LBD causality? This presentation will review the efforts that have been underway at the Spine Research Institute over the past several decades to unravel the casual pathway puzzle. These efforts involve observational field studies, biomechanical laboratory studies, modeling and more recent attempts to phenotype patients using patient-centered studies. These efforts will be presented as a pattern of evidence to better appreciate the casual pathways associated with LBD that can be used to inform prevention as well as treatment efforts.

Presenter Bio:
William S. Marras, Ph.D.

William S. Marras holds the Honda Chair in Integrated Systems Engineering at the Ohio State University and serves as the Director of the Spine Research Institute at the Ohio State University where he leads NIH, NSF, DoD and privately funded research efforts. Dr. Marras holds joint academic appointments in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, the Department of Neurosurgery, and the Department of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation. His research is focused on understanding multidimensional causal pathways for spine disorders through quantitative epidemiologic evaluations, laboratory biomechanical studies, personalized mathematical modeling, and clinical studies of the lumbar and cervical spines. His findings have been published in over 300 peer-reviewed journal articles, hundreds of refereed proceedings, and numerous books and book chapters including a book entitled The Working Back: A Systems View. Professor Marras has been active in the National Research Council (NRC) having served on over a dozen boards and committees and has served as Chair of the Board on Human Systems Integration for multiple terms. He has also served as Editor-in-Chief of Human Factors and is currently Deputy Editor of Spine. Dr. Marras holds Fellow status in six professional societies and is an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering (the National Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine), recorded a TEDx talk entitled “Back Pain and your Brain” and has been featured on NPR’s All Things Considered.