Response to: 'Correspondence on 'Incidence trend of five common musculoskeletal disorders from 1990 to 2017 at the global, regional and national level: results from the Global Burden of Disease study 2017' by Chiang et al.

We appreciate Chiang et al 1 for their interest and comments on our research article entitled ‘Incidence trend of five common musculoskeletal disorders from 1990 to 2017 at the global, regional and national level: results from the global burden of disease study 2017’.2 For exact occupations, it is unfortunately impossible to divide patients with musculoskeletal (MSK) disorders into groups according to their occupations since there are no corresponding estimates from the Global Burden of Disease study 2017.3 4 We agree with your comments on effects of social risk factors and occupational risks between high and low human development index (HDI) countries1; in our study, a stable or increasing trend of age-standardised incidence rate (ASR) for low back pain (LBP) was observed.2 However, occupational risks attributable to ASR might be more likely to be modified among countries …