MILTON ENG
Evaluation of Hearing Conservation Awareness Within High Noise Industries
within Washington State
Industrial Hygiene and Safety, MS
Preceptor: William Daniell, MD, MPH
Over the recent several years, the state of Washington has witnessed a marked increase in the number of worker hearing loss claims filed with the department of labor and industries. This continual rise in the number of worker compensation claims is quite alarming especially in light of all the state and federal laws that have been developed to help regulate high noise industries and protect workers'. There are many factors that could be behind these current rates of occupational hearing loss, ranging from lack of employer compliance with current hearing conservation standards to employee refusal to follow safe work practices. However, one possible reason behind the increasing number of claims is the lack of employee awareness due to inadequate communication between employer and employee about proper hearing conservation strategies.
It is the goal of this paper to evaluate the relative effectiveness of hearing conservation plans (HCP's) within high noise industries using questionnaires developed to assess the awareness of both employers and employees. While effectiveness can be measured in many ways when looking at hearing conservation the focus of this paper will be on the amount of hearing loss accrued or conversely prevented by the relative effectiveness of the HCP. To accomplish this, both employer and employee questionnaires will be examined separately for patterns of responses and then compared to each other for differences in similarity of responses. It is my hope that the questionnaires developed and used in this research along with their interpretations lead to more research in using standardized methods to evaluate HCP's.
