Rapid Entire Body AssessmentREBA

The Rapid Entire Body Assessment — REBA — is the ergonomic tool that extends the upper-body RULA to the whole body, so the assessor can score the dynamic, unpredictable task where the worker moves through postures rather than holds one — the patient transfer, the bag lift, the construction handling, the warehouse pick. REBA scores the trunk, the neck, the legs, the upper arm, the lower arm, and the wrist, adjusts for the coupling, the load, and the activity, and combines them into a 1-to-15 action level that maps from negligible risk to very high, with the investigate and the change thresholds between. The tool was built for healthcare, where the patient-handling injury is the dominant musculoskeletal risk, and it spread to every sector with an unpredictable manual task.

REBA is the companion to RULA — RULA for the seated, fixed workstation, REBA for the standing, dynamic one — and the two cover the musculoskeletal risk across the office and the floor. The pair is used alongside the NIOSH Lifting Equation, which is the tool that calculates the recommended weight limit for a specific symmetric lift, where REBA scores the posture of an asymmetric and dynamic one the Equation does not fit. The discipline that makes REBA useful is the same as any ergonomic screen — the assessment that produces an action, the re-assessment after the intervention, and the trend the programme reports as a leading indicator. See RULA and leading indicator.