Occupational noise exposure on construction sites

Hearing loss among operating engineers in American construction industry

“…Individual construction worker's noise exposure level depends on how much noise the equipment he/she operates is making, how close the worker is to the equipment, and how long he/she is exposed (Legris and Poulin 1998;Schneider and Susie 1993). Several studies have identified common noise sources and documented exposure levels on construction sites (Anon 1984;Hattis 1998;Kerr et al 2002;Legris and Poulin 1998;McClymount and Simpson 1989;Schneider and Susie 1993;Sinclair and Haflidson 1995;Utley and Miller 1985). Sound level measurements of construction equipment and activities conducted by McClymount and Simpson (1989) revealed a wide range of noise levels, from 85 dBA of a hand saw to 122 dBA of hammers striking a nail head on a stud.…”

Longitudinal Assessment of Noise Exposure in a Cohort of Construction Workers

“…; e-mail: rneitzel@u.washington.edu 2006). Construction workers have been shown to have high potential for overexposure to noise (LaBenz et al, 1967;Utley and Miller, 1985;Greenspan et al, 1995;Legris and Poulin, 1998;Blute et al, 1999;Sinclair and Haflidson, 1995;Kock et al, 2004) and also have high rates of noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL; Kenney and Ayer, 1975;Arndt et al, 1996;Daniell et al, 1998Daniell et al, , 2002Wu et al, 1998;Meyer et al, 2002;Suter, 2002;Dement et al, 2005;Hong, 2005), a permanent and irreversible yet completely preventable disease. Noise exposure regulations (OSHA, 1983) have been in place in general industry for decades, but few US construction workers are covered by noise exposure regulations, and enforcement efforts have generally been lax (Reilly et al, 1998;Jeffress, 2000).…”

Estimation of sound pressure level exposures from sound power level measurements of powered hand-tools

“…(1)) advocates subtracting 4 to 12 dB from measured sound power level to estimate sound pressure level exposures. Equation (2), the rule of thumb provided in the Australian government noise control guide 12 , subtracts 2 to 8 dB from measured sound power level to estimate sound pressure level exposure. Using these methods will invariably underestimate the worker' noise exposure.…”

“…A number of studies have shown that A-weighted sound pressure level exposures to construction workers from portable power tools range from 81 dB to 113 dB [1][2][3][4] . Although, these previous studies focused on personal, task-based, and area sound level measurements they did show that power tools were a major contributor to construction site noise.…”