Evaluation of different criteria for significant threshold shift in occupational hearing conservation programs

Details

• Personal Author:
  Royster JD
• Description:
  A comparison was undertaken of six different criteria for determining significant hearing threshold shift. Each criterion was applied to the first eight audiograms for males participating in 15 different industrial hearing conservation programs. Of the different criteria used, the OSHA standard threshold shift (STS) criterion produced the lowest overall percentage of employees tagged as having suffered a threshold shift. The 15-dB SHIFT and NIOSH SHIFT criteria produced the highest percentages. The mean percentages of employees tagged on an annual basis generally were small, less than 10% in referent data bases and 20% or less in the noncontrol data bases. The 15-dB SHIFT and NIOSH SHIFT criteria tagged 37% and 51% of employees in noncontrol data bases on the first test comparison and averaged 14% and 24% of employees even in referent data bases. The purpose of the significant threshold shift criterion was to tag employees with temporary threshold shifts (TTS) before they develop hearing loss. Therefore, the purpose of the threshold shift criterion selected was not to act as a recordable occupational illness but rather to reflect a significant amount of persistent hearing change. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Ear Hearing Loss Noise Occupational Exposure Occupational Health Safety Sense Organs
• Keywords:
  Ear-disorders Hearing-loss NIOSH-Purchase-Order Noise-exposure Noise-induced-hearing-loss; Occupational-exposure Sensory-thresholds
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Purchase Order Report
• Place as Subject:
  North Carolina ; OSHA Region 4
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-67
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:00211757
• NTIS Accession Number:
  PB93-159143
• Citation:
  Environmental Noise Consultants, Inc., Raleigh, North Carolina 1992 Dec; :1-67
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  1993
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Source Full Name:
  Environmental Noise Consultants, Inc., Raleigh, North Carolina
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:01af3ded6e2ab64d030813ddd8ae91c07d02f4ee297508e902eeb964b826f7ae2fec92f5808d066a111be584055f0b3976c875b9d7f5f03cd7f276f084f9a98d
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/204678/cdc_204678_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 2.52 MB ]