Stephenson and Stephenson, Research and Consulting, LLC, 5706 State Route 132, Batavia, Ohio 45103, USA.
Jiangsu Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 172 Jiangsu Road, Nanjing, Jiangsu, 210009, China.
J Acoust Soc Am. 2022 Aug;152(2):1074. doi: 10.1121/10.0013418.
National and international regulatory and consensus standards setting bodies have previously proposed derating hearing protector ratings to provide a better match between ratings determined in a laboratory and the real-world measurements of attenuation for workers. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health has proposed a derating scheme that depends upon the type of protector. This paper examines four real-world studies where personal attenuation ratings (PARs) were measured at least twice, before and after an intervention in earplug fitting techniques. Results from these studies indicate that individualized earplug fitting training dramatically improves a worker's achieved PAR value. Additionally, derating schemes fail to accurately predict the majority of achieved PARs. Because hearing protector fit testing systems are now readily available for use in the workplace, personal attenuation ratings provide a better estimate of worker noise exposures and are able to identify those persons who need additional instruction in fitting hearing protection devices.
国家和国际监管和共识标准制定机构此前曾提议降低听力保护器的评级，以更好地匹配实验室确定的评级与工人实际测量的衰减值。美国国家职业安全与健康研究所提出了一种依赖于保护器类型的降级方案。本文研究了四项真实世界的研究，这些研究在耳塞适配技术干预前后至少两次测量了个人衰减评级（PAR）。这些研究的结果表明，个性化耳塞适配培训显著提高了工人的实际 PAR 值。此外，降级方案未能准确预测大多数实际 PAR 值。由于听力保护器适配测试系统现在已在工作场所广泛使用，个人衰减评级可更好地估计工人的噪声暴露情况，并能够识别那些需要进一步指导如何适配听力保护设备的人员。
