Determination of the occupational disease risk of hearing for coal mines employees

Abstract

The article proposes a method of determining of the professional risk level for occurrence of hearing system deceases at miners while performing different technical operations. Based on the free literature sources analysis the major hazards peculiar to miners’ labour conditions with huge noise load as one of them were determined. It was suggested that Risk Score method according to DSTU-P OHSAS 18001 : 2006 «Health, Safety and Security Management Systems» is used for assessment of diminished hearing level as enough tested and adopted to use in EU countries. The calculations consist in multiplication of seriousness of consequences, hazard probability, and frequency of occurrence. As a result of processing of data from the maps of working conditions (noise load in different areas) it was stated that the value of risk level of professional decease occurrence of sensorineural hearing loss is moderate. Using the recommendations of ISO 1999 : 2013 standard it was determined that there exists the definite probability of hearing loss for some part of employees with the working life increase. Thus, in 5 years 50 % of persons not using hearing protective equipment will reach the level 12 dB hearing loss. The approach suggested may be used for calculations of hearing loss of miners in accordance with requirements of European Standard ISO 1999 : 2013. It was recommended to limit the time of presence of miners in the hazardous area to decrease the probability of sensorineural hearing loss. While choosing the hearing protective equipment it is important to consider the fact that their actual efficiency described by a producer is determined in laboratory conditions and overvalued, so it requires significant correction to be used as a protective means for miners.