Occupational Noise Sources and Exposures in Construction Industries

Abstract

This is an assessment of occupational noise exposures in the construction industry based on (1) noise measurements observed during Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) inspections over the period from 1986 through early 1997 and (2) the observed incidence of noise exposures over 85 dB (A) in a national random sample of construction firms done as part of the NIOSH National Occupational Exposure Survey (NOES) in 1981-83. The OSHA inspection data are analyzed by both industry categories and a classification system of equipment and occupational types based on free form descriptions of “job title” by OSHA inspectors. Because construction workers' jobs and work tasks change frequently, the noise observations within each industry were treated as a distribution indicating the fraction of time that workers would be likely to spend at various noise levels projected to a common year (1995). The time at each noise level in OSHA measured dB(A) was summarized in terms of “90 dB(A) equivalents” using the “equal energy rule” which weights a day of exposure time at 100 dB(A), for example, as the equivalent of 10 days of exposure at 90 dB(A). Overall the 1995 projected exposures are slightly less than one “90 dB(A) equivalent” of continuous noise exposure per worker in the industry. This estimate is generally compatible with three other extensive sets of noise measurements for construction workers in the U.S. and Canada. In further work the exposure estimates developed here will be used to project the hearing losses likely to result from work in construction industries. Those results will be compared with extensive available data on the hearing loss experience of construction workers in British Columbia. The results will