Report from the ACGIH Physical Agents TLV Committee: Review of the Threshold Limit Value for Noise

Abstract

The American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists' Threshold Limit Values (TLVs) for Physical Agents Committee has placed a revised Noise TLV on the 1993 Notice of Intended Changes. Of particular interest in the past decade has been whether the current 5 dBA “trading relation” between time and exposure level is justified. At a meeting held by the Physical Agents TLV Committee, a group of international experts presented their views on this concern and provided an excellent review of the current state of knowledge on the acoustic levels that may lead to noise-induced hearing loss.