Despite the rising health care costs of back pain, the evaluation of economic aspects of back pain interventions has received little attention. This paper reviews 23 economic evaluation studies of back pain interventions looking at costs, consequences, and other methodological aspects. This paper gives a detailed summary of the economic evaluation data given by these studies and provides insight into the quality of economic evaluation in the field of back pain. Seven of the studies dealt with injury-prevention programs, six with post-incidence management programs, and ten studies with back injury and pain remedies. The injury prevention programs (except for back pain programs) and post-incidence management programs appear to produce cost savings due to reduced absenteeism. This paper shows that because of differences in the measurement of costs and outcomes and other methodological limitations, it is impossible to draw conclusions in favor of any one type of program.

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