In this paper an attempt has been made to evaluate the hearing loss of workmen (subjects) in an open cast Chromite mines with respect to age, working experience and work stations. The age group 50–60 years is found to be the biggest age group suffering significant hearing loss on both the ears. Also, the Work Zone area is found to be most significant area affecting hearing loss on both the ears. However, the subjects having experience of 30–35 and 25–30 years have the most significant hearing loss on the left and right ears, respectively. Also, there is no significant difference of hearing loss exhibited by the subjects on both ears at the age group of 50–60 years and to the subjects working in the work zone area.
Background:The present work aimed at to describe hearing threshold based on audiometry data of the mine workers based on their age, work station and years of working of an open cast chromite mine in Odisha, India at high fence.Materials and Methods:A cross-sectional study of hearing threshold of the subjects of the chromite mine was carried out. Audiometric data of 500 subjects were taken from the hospital of the mines of Sukinda Valley, Jajpur, Odisha, India. The latest audiometry data available during the period 2002 to 2008 was used in the statistical analysis.Results:The age group 50-60 years is found to be the most influential age group suffering significant hearing loss on both the ears. Also, the Work Zone area is found to be most significant area affecting hearing loss on both the ears. However, the subjects having experience of 30-35 and 25-30 years have the most significant hearing loss on the left and right ears, respectively.Conclusion:The hearing loss is found to be at 6 kHz, thus the working areas of the subjects working at work zone should be regularly rotated in less noisy areas to reduce the exposure duration. High frequency noise protective device should be advocated among all the subjects in general and HEMMs operators in particulars. Regular audiometry test of all the subjects should be performed to identify the hearing loss of the subjects occurring at 6 kHz. It is essential to perform periodic maintenance of all the HEMMs to keep all the vehicles in good condition those are generating noise at dominating frequency of 4 and 6 kHz.
Systematic monitoring of noise levels was carried out inside the cabin of all the Heavy Earth Moving Machineries deployed in a chromite mining complex during summer 2008 and winter 2009. The present study aimed to estimate the significance and the degree of association of the noise levels with respect to all the HEMMs. The analysis (t-test) shows that the equivalent noise (Leq) levels inside the cabin differ significantly with the test value of 85 dBA for all the HEMMs. Analysis of Variance reveals that the values of Leq are not identical with respect to the time of monitoring and also inside the cabins of different HEMMs (p<0.01). The Leq is the most significant during third part of time monitoring inside the cabin of the dozer (p<0.01). The Chi-square test reveals that 0.752 is the highest degree of association between the dozer, p=0.000(p<0.01) and Leq levels and exists a high degree of association.
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