Study of Noise and Hearing in Jute Weaving

Abstract

A retrospective study of hearing in a female population exposed to weaving noise is described. The noise is believed to have remained substantially unaltered over periods of exposure ranging from less than 1–52 years. The deterioration of hearing due to noise has been assumed to be estimated by the difference between the recorded hearing level and the expected hearing level from other published presybcusis data. Patterns of deterioration of hearing are described for various audiometric frequencies. The most conspicuous feature is an initial deterioration in the first 10–15 years of exposure, followed by a period of about 10–15 years where deterioration attributable to noise is small. Thereafter, after 20–25 years of exposure, further deterioration occurs, especially marked at 2000 cps. The possible distribution of noise-induced threshold changes is briefly considered.