Race/ethnicity differences in the prevalence of noise-induced hearing loss in a group of metal fabricating workers.
The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health rates noise-induced hearing loss as one of the top 10 work-related problems, involving at least 11 million workers. This retrospective study examines the differences between pure-tone hearing loss and race/ethnicity in 216 white and 70 non-white male metal fabricating workers. Significant variables upon univariate analysis found to be associated with race/ethnicity were mean years of employment and proportion of time worked without hearing protection. Among whites, the permanent threshold average for 1, 2, 3 and 5 kHz was 25.99 dB, compared with 17.71 dB in non-whites (P < 0.01). Backwards stepwise regression indicated that race/ethnicity, after being adjusted for years of employment, was the major-effect variable. The results of this study suggest that occupational noise exposure alone does not alone account for the racial hearing differences.
Ishii
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Epidemiology, Statistics and Data System Branch, National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders, National Institute of Health, Bethesda, Md., USA.
Talbott
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D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D001301:Audiometry, Pure-Tone; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D006317:Hearing Loss, Noise-Induced / Q000208:ethnology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008669:Metallurgy; D008875:Middle Aged; D009784:Occupational Diseases / Q000208:ethnology*; D015995:Prevalence; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology