title: Kurtosis corrected sound pressure level as a noise metric for risk assessment of occupational noises.
abstract: Current noise guidelines use an energy-based noise metric to predict the risk of hearing loss, and thus ignore the effect of temporal characteristics of the noise. The practice is widely considered to underestimate the risk of a complex noise environment, where impulsive noises are embedded in a steady-state noise. A basic form for noise metrics is designed by combining the equivalent sound pressure level (SPL) and a temporal correction term defined as a function of kurtosis of the noise. Several noise metrics are developed by varying this basic form and evaluated utilizing existing chinchilla noise exposure data. It is shown that the kurtosis correction term significantly improves the correlation of the noise metric with the measured hearing losses in chinchillas. The average SPL of the frequency components of the noise that define the hearing loss with a kurtosis correction term is identified as the best noise metric among tested. One of the investigated metrics, the kurtosis-corrected A-weighted SPL, is applied to a human exposure study data as a preview of applying the metrics to human guidelines. The possibility of applying the noise metrics to human guidelines is discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Cincinnati, 2600 Clifton Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio 45221, USA.
authors.forename: G Steven
authors.initials: GS
authors.lastname: Goley
authors.forename: Won Joon
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Song
authors.forename: Jay H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Kim
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000818:Animals; D002682:Chinchilla; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory; D005583:Fourier Analysis; D017408:Guidelines as Topic; D006317:Hearing Loss, Noise-Induced / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D016014:Linear Models; D009622:Noise / Q000009:adverse effects*; D016273:Occupational Exposure; D011312:Pressure; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012307:Risk Factors; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D013997:Time Factors