If I Had a Hammer, I’d Wear Hearing Protection All Day Long
The depth of training on hazardous noise and hearing protection is frequently too basic.
- By Renee S. Bessette
- Mar 01, 2008
You don’t have to go far in any city or
along an interstate highway to hear
the sounds of new construction—
office buildings, hotels, restaurants, shopping
centers, and houses. And just as you
can hear the loud sounds of cranes, pile drivers,
nail guns, and jackhammers, so, too,
can the workers who are raising these
structures. In fact, it’s a lot louder for them.
Are they wearing hearing protection? In
many cases, the answer is no.
“Construction sites are inherently hazardous
environments, and eliminating and
reducing acute hazards and potentially
deadly hazards like falls and electrocutions
is a big challenge for workers and contractors,”
said Rick Neitzel, MS, CIH, a
research scientist at the University of
Washington’s Department of Environmental
and Occupational Health Sciences.
“Preventing chronic diseases like noise-induced
hearing loss and silicosis has historically
been less of a priority,”
Walk past any construction site and
you’re likely to see signs advising those
who enter to don hard hats, protective
footwear, and safety eyewear. You probably
won’t be advised to wear hearing protectors.
The simple fact is that, because noise-induced
hearing loss (NIHL) shows no visible
effects or trauma and accumulates over
time, it’s low on the construction personal
protection equipment totem pole. It’s also
not heavily regulated in construction—and
thus not enforced—like it is in general
industry, mining, or railroads.
OSHA does have regulations relating to
hearing conservation in construction under
its omnibus “Safety and Health Regulations
for Construction” standard (29 CFR
1926). However, this effort to protect
workers from hazardous noise is less than
efficient. It identifies hazardous noise levels
(CFR 1926.52) and states that hearing protectors
“shall be provided
and used” (CFR 1926.101).
But there is no mention of
dosimetry, audiometry,
training, or recordkeeping;
just an acknowledgement
that “noise happens” and
that you might want to do
something about it.
The Noise Problem
Admittedly, a construction
site is a difficult environment
in which to regulate
or enforce good hearing
conservation practices.
Consider what it takes to
erect a building—excavation,
steel work, masonry,
carpentry, pipefitting, electrical,
HVAC, painting,
welding, and roofing. These activities are
performed by a wide variety of skilled and
unskilled workers who work for large,
medium, and small contractors and subcontractors,
and they are on the job for
anywhere from a few days to a few months
(or even years) performing a wide range of
tasks during their shifts. The transient
nature of such an environment, where tasks
and personnel are constantly changing,
means that operations are noisy one day
but may not be the next.
Yet the problem is nonetheless serious.
More than 500,000 U.S. construction
workers are exposed to hazardous noise on
a regular basis.1 However, the use of
hearing protection has become the exception
rather than the rule. In a study of construction
workers in Washington state2 by
Neitzel and Noah Seixas, Ph.D., CIH,
results showed that construction workers
were exposed to 85 dBA or higher in about
70 percent of their workshifts yet wore
their hearing protectors less than 20 percent
of the time.
On the up side, the study also concluded
that, on average, workers achieved
more than half of an ear plug’s published
Noise Reduction Rating (NRR) and that,
most times, this was just enough protection
for their application. Most construction
noise was 95 dB or less. While there is
an array of activities happening on a site at
any given time, most construction noise
averages less than 100 dB, ranging
between 85 and 95 dB.
While this does not lessen the need for
hearing protective devices (HPDs), it does
support the need for lower-attenuating
and uniform-attenuating hearing protectors,
which can help workers avoid overprotection
and thus improve overall
worker safety.
Long-Term Solutions
In 2002, OSHA announced that it was considering a rulemaking change that would
add an actionable hearing conservation
regulation and enforcement for construction,
much like general industry.
The American National Standards
Institute (ANSI) recently issued the
A10.46-2007 “Hearing Loss Prevention
for Construction and Demolition
Workers” standard4 that outlined specific
requirements for implementing a hearing
conservation program in construction—
accommodating a well-rounded practice of
noise controls, audiometry, HPD use, and
training. In fact, the standard presents
alternative methods in managing audiometric
records for a transient workforce.
“What is unique about the standard is
that it offers contractors flexibility in
determining hazardous situations, and the
contractor is not limited to costly TWA
monitoring to make the determination,”
Walter A. Jones, associate director of the
Laborers' Health and Safety Fund of
North America, said. “Because noise
levels of common construction equipment
are well characterized, the standard
allows employers to use past monitoring,
reference data, studies, manufacturer
information, the standard’s appendix, or
the old standard of workers having to yell
to communicate to someone three feet
away as a means of determining hazardous
exposure or situations.
“Instead of waiting to control the hazards
only when an 8-hour TWA has been
met, this standard protects against all hazardous
exposure, i.e., every time you
operate a pneumatic drill your have to wear
protection,” Jones said. “In addition, the
standard guards against overprotection and
provides simplified guidance for derating
hearing protection.”
Many states are reviewing the ANSI
standard for their own implementation.
And in the past year since the standard was
announced, a few contractors are already
implementing basic elements of the standard,
increasing the availability of HPDs
throughout work sites and the depth of
hearing conservation training.
“As contractors have become more
adept at integrating safety measures into
the construction process, more emphasis
is being placed on issues like hearing loss
prevention,” Neitzel said. “We’ve got a
long way to go, but I think there’s been
some real progress made towards
reducing hearing loss among construction
workers.”
References
1. Suter, Alice. “Construction Noise:
Exposures, Effects, and the Potential for
Remediation; A Review and Analysis”
www.cdc.gov/elcosh/docs/d0100/d000054
/d000054.html
2. Seixas, Noah and Neitzel, Rick. “Noise
Exposure and Hearing Protection Use
Among Construction Workers in Washington
State,” September 2004.
3. http://cdc.gov/niosh/topics/noise/work
placesolutions/toolsDatabase.html
4. http://webstore.ansi.org/RecordDetail
.aspx?sku=ANSI/ASSE%20A10.46-2007
This article originally appeared in the March 2008 issue of Occupational Health & Safety.