Effect of Industrial Work-Related Variables on Achieved Hearing Protector Attenuation

Details

• Personal Author:
  Casali JG ; Park Y
• Description:
  Studies were conducted to determine spectral noise attenuation and perceived comfort in controlled laboratory and industrial field settings. The laboratory simulations were developed to investigate the effects of several field factors of hearing protective device (HPD) wearing time, activity movement, and HPD fitting conditions on spectral attenuation and comfort afforded by foam and triple flanged earplugs, a foam cushion earmuff, and an earmuff over foam earplug combination. The findings indicated that achieved attenuation and user comfort significantly decreased over the two hour HPD wearing period and that training for better fitting markedly improved the noise protection. In the field study the actual noise attenuation and comfort were determined over two consecutive 3 week periods of HPD use in five industrial workplaces. The overall field attenuation results indicated that in general the laboratory protocols cannot be relied upon to yield valid predictions of true workplace protection levels afforded by hearing protectors. The exception was the earmuff for which laboratory test results were not significantly different from those of the field at any frequency when like fitting protocols were compared. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Hearing Loss Hearing Loss, Noise-Induced Noise Noise, Occupational Occupational Health Personal Protective Equipment Safety Workplace
• Keywords:
  Hearing-impairment NIOSH-Grant Noise-induced-hearing-loss Noise-protection Personal-protective-equipment Workplace-studies
• Series:
  Grant Final Reports
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Final Grant Report
• Place as Subject:
  OSHA Region 3 ; Virginia
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  OEP - Office of Extramural Programs
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-71
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:00201851
• NTIS Accession Number:
  PB92-124445
• Citation:
  Auditory Systems Laboratory, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia 1990 Nov; :1-71
• Contact Point Address:
  Indus Engr and Operations Res Virginia Polytechnic Institute Blacksburg, VA Blacksburg, VA 24061
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  1991
• NORA Priority Area:
  Disease and Injury: Hearing Loss ; Research Tools and Approaches: Control Technology and Personal Protective Equipment
• Performing Organization:
  Virginia Polytechnic Inst and St Univ, Blacksburg, Virginia
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  19880516
• Source Full Name:
  Auditory Systems Laboratory, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia
• End Date:
  19900815
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:652f39e0c15a88d690d507b8d97e416390e2280eef028add6b97140a7f15195d38c27ef4934fc0d0a661c62ad648d83777d8bf0f6e2530a8bcbc53168b0a6547
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/217808/cdc_217808_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 2.52 MB ]