Hearing Conservation Practices Introduced in a Metallurgic Industry

Abstract

A Hearing Conservation Program (HCP) was implemented to guarantee hearing conservation, prevent hearing loss and mainly to avoid difficulties in communication among factory workers. The objective is to analyze the hearing loss in an industry and to develop the hearing conservation activities that were carried out in an industry in the year 2000. There were 67 employees in the industry working on foundry, in the making of valves for water plants.The results: the most important hearing harm was noise with levels between 83 and 105 dB(A). About employees threshold hearing, levels of 38.8% of noise-induced permanent threshold shift (NIPTS); 7.5% of non-occupational hearing damage; 53.7% of normal threshold. The workplace noise average exposure was 12 years and the average employees age was 31.9 . Personal hearing protection was used by 67.2% of them. A HCP ought to be not only an audiometric testing but should also suggest activities to change work environment and make proposals on educational actions to modify the attitudes of workers and managers.