New Insights into Back Health Intervention in Children

Dear Colleagues,

During the second half of the 20th century, nonspecific low back pain (LBP) became one of the biggest problems for public health systems in the Western world, and now, it seems to be spreading worldwide.

The United Nations, the World Health Organization, the World Bank, and numerous governments worldwide recognized the monumental impact of musculoskeletal conditions through support for the Bone and Joint Decade 2000 to 2010 initiative.

The European Union has developed policies to promote action research in this field. A guide has been developed through "COST Action B13" that gathers and organizes the scientific evidence on this issue. It aims to develop an effective intervention to prevent this problem and mark the direction of future research lines.

It is known that the prevalence of back problems at school age is high and, therefore, deserves a more exhaustive study.

Based on scientific studies and recent reviews, the European guidelines for preventing LBP conclude that there is insufficient evidence to recommend generalized educational intervention in school-age children but state that developing preventive intervention programs and risk factor modification would be a positive step. Therefore, we can say there is a broad consensus on the need to address back health problems at an early age in a broad context.

Comprehensive back health interventions should focus on improving back health awareness and developing healthy habits through motivational activities.

This Special Issue aims to analyze the current state of educational interventions to maintain and improve back health at an early age. It also aims to select the most important research studies on interventions under development, to highlight the most effective models and methodological strategies in different contexts, educational, preventive, and therapeutic, and to identify needs, challenges, and future lines of research.

In this Special Issue, we invite you to share your work on back health interventions in children and adolescents. We would also be very interested in suggestions such as:

1. The transfer of scientific knowledge to education: evidence for back health education.
2. Back health in physical literacy.
3. Educational models in back health.
4. A systematic review of interventions in back health.
5. Measuring instruments for the development of back health in diverse contexts.
6. The current state of professional training for the development of interventions for back health education
7. The school population's current state of knowledge and habits (primary and secondary) about back health.
8. Education for back health: an intervention based on comprehensive models.
9. Evidence of the implications of back health intervention on back health: a longitudinal study.
10. Challenges for research in back health intervention in the 21st century.

Prof. Dr. Vicente Miñana-Signes
Dr. Manuel Monfort-Pañego
Dr. Josep Vidal Conti
Dr. Matias Noll
Guest Editors

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