Measuring, rating, and comparing the real ear attenuation at threshold of four earplugs

Details

• Personal Author:
  Byrne, David C. ; Murphy, William J. ; Stephenson, Mark R.
• Description:
  The effect of training instruction, whether presented as the manufacturer's printed instructions, a short video training session, specific to the product, or as a one-on-one training session, was evaluated using four hearing protection devices with eight groups of subjects. The Howard Leight Fusion and Airsoft premolded earplugs and the Moldex PuraFit and EAR Classic foam earplugs were tested. Naïve subjects were recruited and tested using three different forms of training: written, video, and individual training. The differences between group averages for A-weighted attenuation were not statistically significant when compared between the video or the written instruction conditions, regardless of presentation order. The experimenter- trained A-weighted attenuations were significantly greater than the written and video instruction for most of the protectors and groups. For each earplug, the noise reduction statistic for A-weighting (NRSA) and the associated confidence intervals were calculated for the 90th and 10th percentiles of protection. Across subject groups for each protector, the differences between NRSA ratings were found to be not statistically significant. Several comparisons evaluating the order of testing, the type of testing, and statistical tests of the performance across the groups are presented. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Ear Hearing Laboratories Noise Noise, Occupational Occupational Health Personal Protective Equipment Protective Clothing Safety Sense Organs
• Keywords:
  Acoustic-vibration Acoustics Ear-protectors Hearing-level Hearing-protection Hearing-threshold Impulse-noise Laboratory-testing Noise-control Noise-exposure Noise-protection Sound

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• ISSN:
  0001-4966
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Abstract or Summary
• Place as Subject:
  Ohio ; OSHA Region 5
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  DART - Division of Applied Research and Technology
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Volume:
  130
• Issue:
  4
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20039810
• Citation:
  J Acoust Soc Am 2011 Oct; 130(4)(2):2435
• Contact Point Address:
  William J. Murphy, NIOSH, 4676 Columbia Parkway MS C-27, Cincinnati, OH 45226-1998
• Email:
  wjm4@cdc.gov
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2012
• NORA Priority Area:
  Manufacturing
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Part Number:
  2
• Source Full Name:
  Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:af629dcd63debb82b24e81f11405c76a528182cbc97900469098d4bf8f27b0cd1089850cf02b5c94c658af858f92bef5cbe5ea4f1a694648dab5005e4d0dbe59
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/192903/cdc_192903_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 49.63 KB ]