Health hazard evaluation report: HETA-2002-0131-2898, Fort Collins Police Services, Fort Collins, Colorado.
Authors
Tubbs RL; Murphy WJ
Source
Cincinnati, OH: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, HETA 2002-0131-2898, 2003 Mar; :1-29
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) received an employee request for a health hazard evaluation of the Fort Collins Police Services in Fort Collins, Colorado, in January 2002. The department was concerned about noise exposures and potential hearing damage from weapons training on their indoor and outdoor firing ranges. One specific concern was the Special Weapons And Tactics (SWAT) team of the Fort Collins Police Services and the type of customized hearing protection that they had recently purchased for the team members to use during training and deployment. To address these concerns, NIOSH conducted a temporary threshold shift (TTS) study of officers' hearing following weapons firing on a standard qualification course on the indoor and outdoor firing ranges. NIOSH investigators also used an acoustic mannequin head to measure noise levels produced by all weapons used by this department. This allowed for the measurement of noise levels when different hearing protection devices were placed on the mannequin, simulating the noise from weapons on protected and unprotected ears. The hearing test results showed almost no temporary loss of hearing among officers following weapons firing for the qualification course used in the evaluation. Also, the pre-exposure hearing tests revealed normal hearing patterns for the majority of the department, with only the oldest group of officers (> 45 years) showing a mild hearing loss pattern at the higher test frequencies. The noise measurements for the various weapons ranged from 159-169 decibels (dB) peak which is greater than a 140 dB peak exposure guideline from NIOSH. The peak reductions afforded by the ear plugs, ear muffs, and customized SWAT team hearing protectors were all in the 30 dB range. Double hearing protection (plugs plus muffs) added 15-20 db more of peak reduction. Based on the measurements and observations made during the evaluation, NIOSH investigators determined that a potential health hazard does exist for officers of the Fort Collins Police Services because the noise levels produced by their weapons are sufficient to put them at risk for occupational hearing loss. However, the hearing protection used by these officers does seem to offer protection as evidenced by the lack of TTS following a qualification course with pistols, shotguns, and rifles and by the normal hearing thresholds measured in nearly all of the officers.
Links with this icon indicate that you are leaving the CDC website.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cannot attest to the accuracy of a non-federal website.
Linking to a non-federal website does not constitute an endorsement by CDC or any of its employees of the sponsors or the information and products presented on the website.
You will be subject to the destination website's privacy policy when you follow the link.
CDC is not responsible for Section 508 compliance (accessibility) on other federal or private website.
For more information on CDC's web notification policies, see Website Disclaimers.
CDC.gov Privacy Settings
We take your privacy seriously. You can review and change the way we collect information below.
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance.
Cookies used to make website functionality more relevant to you. These cookies perform functions like remembering presentation options or choices and, in some cases, delivery of web content that based on self-identified area of interests.
Cookies used to track the effectiveness of CDC public health campaigns through clickthrough data.
Cookies used to enable you to share pages and content that you find interesting on CDC.gov through third party social networking and other websites. These cookies may also be used for advertising purposes by these third parties.
Thank you for taking the time to confirm your preferences. If you need to go back and make any changes, you can always do so by going to our Privacy Policy page.