南台灣某企業男性噪音作業勞工聽力損失調查初報

A Preliminary Report of Factors Related to Noise-Induced Hearing Loss in an Enterprise at Southern Taiwan

10.7023/TJFM.200306.0084

郭崇志(Chung-Chih Kuo)；陳朝棟(Chao-Tung Chen)；周騰達(Tang-Tat Chau)；黃偉城(Wei-Cheng Huang)；邱正宇(Cheng-Yu Chiu)；張恒瑞(Heng-Jui Chang)；黃志芳(Chih-Fang Huang)；王培霖(Pei-Lin Wang)

hearing loss ； noise ； worker health examination

台灣家庭醫學雜誌

13卷2期（2003 / 06 / 01）

84 - 93

繁體中文

Hearing loss in the workplace, due to noise exposure, is an important issue in occupational health. The purpose of this study is to analyze the characteristics and factors related to noise-induced hearing loss of factory workers who worked in a noisy environment. A total of 2216 male noisy environment workers obtained from six different factories from an enterprise at southern Taiwan were selected for analysis. Samples were divided into the high frequency hearing impaired group (n=1,400) or the non-impaired group (n=816). Variables including pure-tone audiometry data, age, working factory, working department, working years, smoking and drinking habits were collected for analysis. High frequency hearing impairment rate showed significant difference in working factories. Furthermoer, one of the factories had a higher impairment rate in two of its working departments (p=0.05). After age-adjusted hearing acuity by the normal standard, we found that there is an obvious high frequency (4 kHz and 6kHz) hearing impairment tendency in the younger workers. In addition, a total of 174 suspected early noise-induced hearing loss cases(8%) were diagnosed and the 95% C.I. of mean hearing threshold at 4 KHz increased from 6 to10dB in a 2-year period. Future field studies should be conducted to confirm and evaluate factors that affect noise-induced hearing loss in a studied enterprise. Hearing protection program for workers should be promoted to prevent employees from severe noise-induced hearing loss.

Hearing loss in the workplace, due to noise exposure, is an important issue in occupational health. The purpose of this study is to analyze the characteristics and factors related to noise-induced hearing loss of factory workers who worked in a noisy environment. A total of 2216 male noisy environment workers obtained from six different factories from an enterprise at southern Taiwan were selected for analysis. Samples were divided into the high frequency hearing impaired group (n=1,400) or the non-impaired group (n=816). Variables including pure-tone audiometry data, age, working factory, working department, working years, smoking and drinking habits were collected for analysis. High frequency hearing impairment rate showed significant difference in working factories. Furthermoer, one of the factories had a higher impairment rate in two of its working departments (p=0.05). After age-adjusted hearing acuity by the normal standard, we found that there is an obvious high frequency (4 kHz and 6kHz) hearing impairment tendency in the younger workers. In addition, a total of 174 suspected early noise-induced hearing loss cases(8%) were diagnosed and the 95% C.I. of mean hearing threshold at 4 KHz increased from 6 to10dB in a 2-year period. Future field studies should be conducted to confirm and evaluate factors that affect noise-induced hearing loss in a studied enterprise. Hearing protection program for workers should be promoted to prevent employees from severe noise-induced hearing loss.

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