Das S, Mulheran M, Brewster M, Banerjee A R
Department of Otolaryngology, Leicester Royal Infirmary, Leicester, UK.
Centre for Medicine, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK.
Clin Otolaryngol. 2018 Apr;43(2):591-597. doi: 10.1111/coa.13028. Epub 2017 Dec 11.
The surveillance of noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) according to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) differs from the medico-legal criteria used to assess NIHL. Our study compares the two systems and proposes a novel method of simplifying the medico-legal criteria and applying it to ascertain noise-induced hearing loss.
The anonymised audiograms of a group of 87 industrial workers from a single site were analysed with both methods.
The comparison showed approximately one-third of the workers assessed in this study had their noise-induced hearing loss underestimated by the HSE criteria. The majority of these individuals were over 40 years of age.
The HSE criteria for noise-induced hearing loss need review and re-alignment with the medico-legal criteria to address the discrepancy between the two systems.
健康与安全执行局（HSE）对噪声性听力损失（NIHL）的监测与用于评估NIHL的法医学标准不同。我们的研究比较了这两种系统，并提出了一种简化法医学标准并将其应用于确定噪声性听力损失的新方法。
采用两种方法对来自单个工厂的87名产业工人的匿名听力图进行分析。
比较表明，本研究中评估的工人约有三分之一的噪声性听力损失被HSE标准低估。这些人大多数年龄超过40岁。
噪声性听力损失的HSE标准需要重新审视并与法医学标准保持一致，以解决这两种系统之间的差异。
