Aims: To determine the prevalence of self reported hearing difficulties and tinnitus in working aged people from the general population, and to estimate the risks from occupational exposure to noise and the number of attributable cases nationally. Methods: A questionnaire was mailed to 22 194 adults of working age selected at random from the age-sex registers of 34 British general practices (21 201 subjects) and from the central pay records of the British armed services (993 subjects). Information was collected on years of employment in a noisy job; and whether the respondent wore a hearing aid, had difficulty in hearing conversation, or had experienced persistent tinnitus over the past year. Associations of hearing difficulty and tinnitus with noise exposure were examined by logistic regression, with adjustment for age, sex, smoking habits, and frequent complaints of headaches, tiredness, or stress. The findings were expressed as prevalence ratios (PRs) with associated 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Attributable numbers were calculated from the relevant PRs and an estimate of the prevalence of occupational exposure to noise nationally. Results: Some 2% of subjects reported severe hearing difficulties (wearing a hearing aid or having great difficulty in both ears in hearing conversation in a quiet room). In men, the prevalence of this outcome rose steeply with age, from below 1% in those aged 16-24 years to 8% in those aged 55-64. The pattern was similar in women, but severe hearing loss was only about half as prevalent in the oldest age band. Tinnitus was far more common in subjects with hearing difficulties. In both sexes, after adjustment for age, the risk of severe hearing difficulty and persistent tinnitus rose with years spent in a noisy job. In men older than 35 years with 10 or more years of exposure, the PR for severe hearing difficulty was 3.8 (95% CI 2.4 to 6.2) and that for persistent tinnitus 2.6 (95% CI 2.0 to 3.4) in comparison with those who had never had a noisy job. Nationally, some 153 000 men and 26 000 women aged 35-64 years were estimated to have severe hearing difficulties attributable to noise at work. For persistent tinnitus the corresponding numbers were 266 000 and 84 000. Conclusions: Significant hearing difficulties and tinnitus are quite common in men from the older working age range. Both are strongly associated with years spent in a noisy occupation-a predominantly male exposure. The national burden of hearing difficulties attributable to noise at work is substantial.O ccupational exposure to noise is an important cause of hearing impairment and disability. In the early 1980s, it was estimated that some 600 000 workers in the British manufacturing industry were exposed to substantial levels of noise (>90 dB(A)) 1 ; and more recently, 11% of employed men and 6% of employed women from a large community survey reported nearly always needing to raise their voices to be heard in the workplace, while 3% of men and 2% of women said that as a result, they left work each day with ringing ...
Aims: To investigate alternative relations between cumulative exposures to hand-transmitted vibration (taking account of vibration magnitude, lifetime exposure duration, and frequency of vibration) and the development of white finger (Raynaud's phenomenon). Methods: Three previous studies have been combined to provide a group of 1557 users of powered vibratory tools in seven occupational subgroups: stone grinders, stone carvers, quarry drillers, dockyard caulkers, dockyard boilermakers, dockyard painters, and forest workers. The estimated total operating duration in hours was thus obtained for each subject, for each tool, and for all tools combined. From the vibration magnitudes and exposure durations, seven alternative measurements of cumulative exposure were calculated for each subject, using expressions of the form: dose = ∑a m i t i , where a i is the acceleration magnitude on tool i, t i is the lifetime exposure duration for tool i, and m = 0, 1, 2, or 4. Results: For all seven alternative dose measures, an increase in dose was associated with a significant increase in the occurrence of vibration-induced white finger, after adjustment for age and smoking. However, dose measures with high powers of acceleration (m > 1) faired less well than measures in which the weighted or unweighted acceleration, and lifetime exposure duration, were given equal weight (m = 1). Dose determined solely by the lifetime exposure duration (without consideration of the vibration magnitude) gave better predictions than measures with m greater than unity. All measures of dose calculated from the unweighted acceleration gave better predictions than the equivalent dose measures using acceleration frequency-weighted according to current standards. Conclusions: Since the total duration of exposure does not discriminate between exposures accumulated over the day and those accumulated over years, a linear relation between vibration magnitude and exposure duration seems appropriate for predicting the occurrence of vibration-induced white finger. Poorer predictions were obtained when the currently recommended frequency weighting was employed than when accelerations at all frequencies were given equal weight. Findings suggest that improvements are possible to both the frequency weighting and the time dependency used to predict the development of vibration-induced white finger in current standards.O ccupational exposures to hand-transmitted vibration result in various disorders, sometimes collectively known as the "hand-arm vibration syndrome". The syndrome includes vascular, neurological, and musculoskeletal disorders that may become manifest individually or collectively. The precise conditions causing each of these disorders are not known. However, for the best known vascular disorder, vibration-induced white finger (VWF), several studies have reported the vibration conditions associated with an observed incidence, or prevalence, of the condition.In 1986, an annex to International Standard 5349 included a dose-response relation between the...
Vehicle refinement should include a consideration of the discomfort likely to be caused by vibration. This paper reviews the measurement, the evaluation, and the assessment of vehicle vibration felt by drivers and passengers.The feeling of vibration that gives rise to judgements of vibration discomfort can be predicted using evaluation procedures that take account of human sensitivity to different magnitudes, frequencies, directions, and durations of vibration. The evaluation methods make it possible to optimise vehicles via dynamic modelling before the production of prototypes and they assist the testing and optimisation of prototypes and production vehicles.Vibration evaluation provides imperfect predictions of discomfort when driver or passenger opinion is influenced by factors other than the vibration that is being measured and evaluated. Vibration evaluation can detect changes that are not detectable subjectively since smaller changes can be detected by measurement and evaluation than by subjective assessment.
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