It’s clear that the two major strategies employed to protect worker hearing —reducing noise in the workplace (OSHA’s hearing conservation standard) and blocking noise from workers’ ears (earplugs achieved their highest noise reduction rating of 33 db nearly 20 years ago) — have not been sufficiently effective. It has been estimated that some 60 percent of today’s factory workers are affected by some level of hearing loss.
It’s time we tried a different approach based on: 1) Assessing the human factors involved in using hearing protection on the job; and 2) Utilizing new materials and processes to develop products that more adequately meet these needs.