Chances are we have all often found ourselves in a place where the noise is as loud as or louder than heavy city traffic. Or where we’ve had to raise our voice to speak to someone who is a metre away from you.
What many people don’t realise is that these noise levels may harm their hearing. And once the damage is done, it is permanent and there is no cure.
Many New Zealanders work in noisy workplaces. Exposure to excessive noise at work can lead to noise-induced hearing loss and tinnitus (ringing in the ears).
Working in noisy environments is also associated with an increased risk of ischaemic heart disease through the increased physical stress of noise causing increased blood pressure. It also has the potential to become a workplace safety risk if workers are not as able to hear instructions or mobile hazards.
Noise is a priority health risk for WorkSafe. Businesses are required by law to manage all workplace health and safety risks.
It’s not just about providing hearing protection to reduce noise exposure. The best way to reduce noise exposure is to:
- remove the noise source entirely
- quieten the noise source
- stop the noise from reaching people
- reduce time of exposure to noise.
Professional noise measurement is recommended to determine if a noise is likely to be harmful.
Noise destroys nerve cells in the inner ear that transmit sound messages to the brain. The nerve cells are replaced by scar tissue which doesn’t respond to sound.
In terms of what you lose, it’s mainly high-frequency sounds like birdsong or the rustle of an animal in the grass, but you may still be able to hear faint high-frequency sounds like a car in the distance.
Someone with noise-induced hearing loss may think many words sound alike and other people’s speech is jumbled. This can lead to misunderstandings as people may think the person with the hearing loss is pretending not to hear, doesn’t seem to understand, or is just being annoying.
Use this checklist to decide if the noise levels at your work are harmful.
- Do you use noisy power tools or machinery at work such as jackhammers or explosive powered tools?
- Do you find it harder to hear people and things as the day goes on?
- Do you experience a ringing in your ears during the day or at night, or have muffled hearing? You might not be able to hear the beginning of sentences or when people have their backs to you.
- Do you need to raise your voice to communicate with someone about one metre away?
- Do you find that there is too much noise or that you can’t clearly hear instructions or warning signals?
- Are the noise levels at your work loud enough to need hearing protection?
If you answered yes to any of the above questions, you may be at risk of losing your hearing.
Your business has a duty to protect your health and safety and must take steps to manage the risks from hazardous noise levels in your work. You can play a part in helping your business to protect you.
If there are hazardous noise levels at your work, your business should get a competent person to carry out a detailed noise assessment to identify high risk areas and tasks. They must make the results of any monitoring available to you, consult with you when making decisions about how they will do the monitoring and what control measures they will put in place.
