Report Brief: Hearing Loss Research at NIOSH

Details

• Corporate Authors:
  Institute of Medicine (U.S.)
• Description:
  Each day, several thousand U.S. workers sustain disabling injuries on the job, more than a dozen workers die from injuries suffered at work, and at least a hundred workers die from work-related illnesses. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) addresses this toll through research to prevent work-related illnesses and injuries and efforts to promote safe and healthy workplaces. In 2004, NIOSH asked the National Academies to convene committees for reviews of up to 15 of its research programs. The National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine committees that are to conduct these reviews are to assess the relevance and impact of the NIOSH research programs in improving occupational safety and health. The committees' reports are also to discuss emerging issues relevant to research needed for future improvements in worker protection. The report on the NIOSH Hearing Loss Research Program is the result of one of the first two reviews for NIOSH. ASSESSMENT OF RELEVANCE: Overall, the committee found the activities of the Hearing Loss Research Program to include strong, high-priority work as well as projects viewed to be of lesser priority. The committee found the program mission and four main research goals highly relevant to the overall aim of reducing occupational hearing loss. In the work carried out to pursue these goals, however, the committee found considerable variation in relevance across the program. Research efforts on interventions targeting personal protective equipment have been appropriately prioritized, and efforts related to developing effective hearing loss prevention programs have also addressed highpriority needs. However, increased emphasis is needed on evaluation of these prevention programs, as well as on dissemination of materials to facilitate the development of engineering controls for noise in prevention programs. Despite Congressional direction that has emphasized mining over other industrial sectors, the program should take more aggressive steps both to apply and transfer noise control technologies developed for the mining industry to other industry sectors and to develop such technologies for other sectors. The committee was concerned that the program was not giving sufficient emphasis and priority to surveillance for occupational hearing loss and noise exposure - a fundamental gap in the field - or devoting enough expertise to its efforts in noise control engineering. Some of the work appears to be too narrowly targeted, or directed to activities that are secondary to meeting the needs of protecting workers' hearing. For this reason the committee assigned a score of 3 for relevance, indicating that often the research focuses on lesser priorities and is loosely or only indirectly connected to workplace protection. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Education Engineering Hearing Loss Hearing Loss, Noise-Induced Noise Noise, Occupational Occupational Health Safety Staff Development
• Keywords:
  Control-technology Effectiveness Research Engineering-controls Hearing-impairment Hearing-loss Noise-control Noise-exposure Noise-induced-hearing-loss Ototoxicity Surveillance-programs Training

  More +
• Publisher:
  National Academies Press
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Contract
• Genre:
  Report
• Place as Subject:
  California ; District of Columbia ; Georgia ; Michigan ; Minnesota ; New Jersey ; New York ; Ohio ; OSHA Region 10 ; OSHA Region 2 ; OSHA Region 3 ; OSHA Region 4 ; OSHA Region 5 ; OSHA Region 9 ; Pennsylvania ; South Carolina ; Washington ; Wisconsin
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-4
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20049895
• Citation:
  Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2006 Aug; :1-4
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2006
• Performing Organization:
  National Academy of Sciences
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Source Full Name:
  Report brief: hearing loss research at NIOSH
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:be3da1fbadd9cf323a472c50f8f02897192edc5688a4f1ccaf62eb538ed7a11fc8180d85913075cdbf61bf8d9b6087f346b965387c319af55fc18a0d17b299e0
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/210490/cdc_210490_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 273.72 KB ]