Are hearing-impaired workers at greater risk of accident and injury on the job? Might not seem like a question for scientific investigation. But it is one of those addressed by a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in December, 1997.
You might say it’s a no-brainer. A worker who can’t hear sirens, horns, whistles or the shouts of coworkers warning of danger, is obviously at greater risk of getting hit by a forklift rounding a corner. Indeed, that’s what the JAMA article authors found: "Workers with disabilities, especially sensory impairments, appear to have an elevated risk for occupational injury."