A rating system in search of hearing protectors.

Details

• Personal Author:
  Franks, John R. ; Murphy, William J.
• Description:
  Previous methods for rating the noise reduction of hearing protection devices (HPDs) have determined the mean attenuation and standard deviations at several octave-band frequencies using real-ear attenuation at threshold (REAT) measurements. Typically, some fraction of the standard deviation is subtracted from the mean attenuation to estimate an assumed protected value for a given percentage of the population. The subtractive correction assumes normally distributed numbers that are linear and not logarithmic. Data from several HPDs were analyzed with a statistical approach which first determined the A-weighted noise reduction for individual measurements. The cumulative distribution of A-weighted noise reduction (CDNRA) was then fit with a combination of two logistic regression curves. The Pearsons correlation coefficients for the model and the data were better than 0.99 for each of four devices analyzed. The CDNRA method yielded reasonable results from data collected from well-fit and poorly fit hearing protectors. In contrast, the NRR method would yield negative NRR values for poorly fit protectors. This paper describes the CDNRA method and looks at the results for an interlaboratory test of four HPDs, as well as additional data collected in the NIOSH Hearing Protector Laboratory. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Age Factors Aging Hearing Hearing Loss Noise Occupational Health Race Factors Safety Sense Organs Sex Characteristics Surveys And Questionnaires

  More +
• Keywords:
  Hearing-level; Hearing-loss; Hearing-acuity; Health-surveys; Age-factors; Age-groups; Information-retrieval-systems; Physical-examination; Racial-factors; Sex-factors; Audiological-testing; Audiometry
• ISSN:
  0001-4966
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Interagency Agreement
• Genre:
  Abstract or Summary
• Place as Subject:
  Ohio ; OSHA Region 5
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  DBBS - Division of Biomedical and Behavioral Sciences
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Volume:
  105
• Issue:
  2
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20045244
• Citation:
  J Acoust Soc Am 1999 Feb; 105(2):1131
• Contact Point Address:
  William J. Murphy, Bioacoustics and Occupational Vibration Section, NIOSH, MS C-27, 4676 Columbia Pkwy., Cincinnati, OH 45226-1998
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  1999
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Source Full Name:
  Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:7dc847c09aedf140bc731323e8446b4703641ae07d6ad9e7b7238120dab30b8f7dcaa9b938d34d035f87873a0fe7fec262d5d13dcaf290925445e82b6de3b57d
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/248258/cdc_248258_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 168.02 KB ]