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Call centers represent one of the fastest growing industries. However, there are health and safety hazards unique to this new industry. One of these potential hazards is hearing impairment caused by headsets. In this study, noise exposure assessment was performed at 21 call centers and for 117 operators. Although call center background noise does not contribute to noise exposure, it impacts working conditions and influences the headset volume setting. It was therefore measured at the same time as exposure to noise. Results revealed that although the risk of hearing impairment was generally low, exposure could exceed the European Union regulation upper and lower exposure action values. Besides exposure to noise, background noise levels are often high with regard to recommendations for office workers. Results are discussed and some recommendations are given, issued from on-site observations. Their application is intended to ensure the absence of excessive exposure to noise and improve acoustic comfort.

Among noise control techniques, enclosures are widely used. It is known that enclosure acoustic efficiency is strongly influenced by the presence of openings or leaks. Modeling of diffuse field sound transmission loss (TL) of apertures and slits is therefore critical when the enclosure acoustic performance characteristics need to be predicted with confidence either for design or for modifying existing enclosures. Recently, a general model for diffuse field sound TL of rectangular and circular apertures has been developed and validated with respect to existing analytical or numerical models. This paper presents an experimental validation of this new model. The aim was to develop a simple, reliable tool for predicting enclosure insertion loss using statistical energy analysis. Twelve out of the 15 test configurations were found to be reliable and were compared with theoretical models, which in fact correlate closely (without adjustment) with the experimental work.

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