Occupationally-Acquired Noise-Induced Hearing Loss: A Senseless Workplace Hazard

Abstract

Despite a high level of public awareness regarding the importance of hearing preservation and increasingly stringent international occupational health, safety and welfare requirements mandating provision of safer work environments, ONIHL continues to be a significant occupational hazard. ONIHL is permanent and may cause significant disability, for which there currently exists no cure, but is largely overtly-preventable. The impact of ONIHL on the global transition toward dominant communication-rich white-collar employment roles is difficult to quantitate, but is likely to be substantive upon the afflicted individual. In the mainstream setting, exposure-avoidance strategies aimed to reduce the incidence of ONIHL remain the focus of public health and occupational medicine approaches.

Prevalence and Risk Factors of Noise-induced Hearing Loss among Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) Cylinder Infusion Workers in Taiwan

“…The current study successfully identified a specific occupational group with noise exposures in open space for LPG infusion industry, which has never been reported in the in-field of occupational hygiene 2) . Environmental noise measurements presented that the occupational noise exposures for field workers were relatively higher for all the noise indicators.…”

“…It is of interest that the habit of frequent tea or coffee consumption was found to eliminate 97% risk of the existence of hearing loss in multivariate analyses. However, no evidence about its molecular mechanism or clinical observation was reported in medical literature 2) . Further investigations on this issue are in need.…”

“…In methodology, other than the limitation of small study population and cross-sectional study design, we were only allowed to access to one factory, instead of applying this project with a multi-center approach, and, also, in lack of blood samples for genetic factors, which had been implied by a study revealing race/ethnicity differences on NIHL prevalence 12) . Further exploration to genetic factors would be the next step for investigations in future, as what also suggested by Kurmis and Apps 2) . It is also possible that there are unidentified organic solvent exposures and fuel compounds coexisting with noise in this industry, which could accelerate the progress of NIHL, reported by previous studies [23][24][25][26][27] .…”

“…A noise-induced hearing loss surveillance system with periodic annual audiometric examinations for workers who exposed to noise >85 dB(A) was also established in Taiwan in 1995 4) . In future, more and more studies reporting hearing disorders caused by workrelated noise in a wide range of industries could be expected 2,3) .…”

Experience with developing a room to meet the requirements of the joint Australian/New Zealand standard 1270

“…Hearing protection is often the only practical means of mitigating the effects of noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) (1,2) . In New Zealand, NIHL is prevalent (3) , however there is also a lack of research and publications that address the issue (3) .…”