An examination of longitudinal hearing conservation databases for evidence of noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL).
Authors
Prince-MM; Gilbert-SJ; Smith-RJ; Stayner-LT
Source
Sixth US-Finnish Joint Symposium on Occupational Health and Safety, People and Work, Proceedings of the Sixth FIOH-NIOSH Joint Symposium on Occupational Health and Safety, 8-10 August 1995, Espoo, Finland. People and Work - Research Reports 3. H. Nordman, J. Starck, A. Tossavainen, E. Viikari-Juntura, eds. Helsinki, Finland: Finnish Institute of Occupational Health; 1995 Aug; :12-16
Abstract
An effort was made to determine the presence of qualitative evidence of hearing loss in workers enrolled in the OSHA mandated hearing conservation programs (HCPs). Sixteen HCPs were examined across the United States from a cross section of industries to test whether there are greater rates of change in hearing levels in relation to increasing cumulative noise exposure during the period of audiometric followup. The sixteen databases contained information on 19,625 workers. In six of the databases examined, variability in population rates of change in hearing was significantly affected by individual specific differences in their learning effect. Individual specific age effects were significant for four databases. Two databases showed evidence of a positive dose response relationship between cumulative noise and rates of change in hearing, irrespective of hearing protection use. Two databases showed evidence of a marginally significant dose response for those who did not wear hearing protection when fitting models without age or learning random effects. For these last two databases, there was no positive association with cumulative noise for those who wore hearing protection. These findings represented one stage of a more extensive analysis, which will focus on better characterization of dose response with respect to hearing protection.
Keywords
Noise-exposure; Ear-disorders; Noise-induced-hearing-loss; Hearing-loss; Personal-protective-equipment; Statistical-analysis; Epidemiology; Data-processing; Information-systems
Document Type
Conference/Symposia Proceedings
Editors
Nordman-H; Starck-J; Tossavainen-A; Viikari-Juntura-E
Source Name
Sixth US-Finnish Joint Symposium on Occupational Health and Safety, People and Work, Proceedings of the Sixth FIOH-NIOSH Joint Symposium on Occupational Health and Safety, 8-10 August 1995, Espoo, Finland. People and Work - Research Reports 3
