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Abstract
From compulsory screening examinations of 260917 noise-exposed workers standardized audiograms as well as medical and occupational histories of 110647 workers were selected because of full-time exposure to well-defined noise > 85 dB (A) and analyzed by loglinear and multiple linear regression. The most important factors for prediction of pure-tone hearing loss at 4 kHz were found to be age, sex and noise immission level. For predicting speech impairment and handicap the history of ear disease, head injury and tinnitus were more important than noise immission level. Dose-response relationships are given to improve prevention and compensation of hearing loss from combined factors.