ESTIMATES OF WORKERS WITH NOISE-INDUCED HEARING LOSS AND POPULATION AT RISK

✍ Scribed by T. Miyakita; A. Ueda

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1997
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 140 KB
• Volume: 205
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0022-460X
• DOI: 10.1006/jsvi.1997.1010

✦ Synopsis

Towards the goal of protecting workers from damage due to noise exposure, a vast store of knowledge has been generated about its nature, etiology and time course. There still exists, however, a strong need to reclarify the locations, nature and magnitude of the problem of noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL). Based on the rate of positive results in a hearing screening test in the workplace, this paper presents an attempt to estimate the total number of workers with more than 40 dB hearing loss at 4 kHz caused by occupational noise exposure. The estimated values in major industry groups were as follows: about 780 000 in manufacturing; 410 000 in construction; 360 000 in agriculture; forestry and fishing; and around 2 million in total. Although it is rather difficult to estimate the number of workers exposed to noise above 85 dB(A), it may be reasonable to believe that at least several million workers exposed to noise should be covered by the 1992 guidelines for the prevention of noise hazards.