title: [Adequacy of personal hearing protection devices].
abstract: At present, attenuation values reported on the hearing protection device (HPD) label are strongly overestimated due to an evaluation method inappropriate for the environments in which they have to be used: the workplaces. An alternative test protocol was validated and published as standard. It should be transposed in the regulatory and legislative scenario and then adopted by manufacturers. Meanwhile, derating schemes proposed by NIOSH may be applied for reducing the labelled attenuation data, in spite of their roughness. Moreover, attenuation values differ from subject to subject. Especially when exposure levels are high or hearing loss is worsening, it could thus be necessary to evaluate the attenuation provided by the hearing protector on each worker. To overcome this problem, the assessment of the hearing threshold levels on a subject with and without the HPD could be integrated into the annual audiometry program.
authors: Scuola di Specializzazione in Medicina del Lavoro, Università di Padova, Italy. alessandro.peretti@unipd.it
authors: A
authors: A
authors: Peretti
authors: F
authors: F
authors: Pedrielli
authors: A Pasqua
authors: AP
authors: di Bisceglie
authors: F
authors: F
authors: Bonomini
mesh_terms: D004430:Ear Protective Devices / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy; D009623:Noise, Occupational / Q000517:prevention & control*; D016273:Occupational Exposure / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000517:prevention & control*