A study of the relationship between hearing loss and industrial noise

Noise is one of the largest problems facing modern societies and industrialised nations and Legislation has been drawn-up and put into effect in most countries. Many criteria have also been set up as guidelines on hearing conservation. However, if one looks closely at this legislation and the many recommendations, there will be no doubt that much more work is needed before a positive criterion can be formulated, as most of the existing theories are either arbitrary or hypothetical. This work investigates the accuracy of the existing theories by surveying the noise characteristics of an industrial plant and checking the hearing loss of many employees of this plant to find particular trends such as hearing loss versus noise frequency, type of noise, noise level, race or nationality and age. New recommendations regarding the noise problem are also proposed.