{"id":10541,"date":"2024-12-06T17:07:43","date_gmt":"2024-12-06T22:07:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jordanbarab.com\/confinedspace\/?p=10541"},"modified":"2024-12-06T15:51:49","modified_gmt":"2024-12-06T20:51:49","slug":"we-need-to-make-more-noise-about-noise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jordanbarab.com\/confinedspace\/2024\/12\/06\/we-need-to-make-more-noise-about-noise\/","title":{"rendered":"We Need to Make More Noise About Noise"},"content":{"rendered":"

W<\/span>hat did you say?<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s true that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has made major progress protecting workers over the last 53 years of its existence, it\u2019s a common misconception that OSHA has been successful in regulating many of the major hazards workers face.\u00a0 There is much that has been left undone.<\/p>\n

The effects of loud noise on workers\u2019 hearing is a good example of what\u2019s been left undone.<\/p>\n

New studies<\/a> published by National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) show that 20% of workers currently suffer from work-related hearing loss and the percentages are even higher in construction<\/a> (23%) and the utilities<\/a> industry (25%) with even higher rates in some subsectors (37% in the hydroelectric power industry, 62% in oil and gas pipeline construction).<\/p>\n

This is despite efforts made by OSHA over the last 40 years to prevent work-related hearing loss.<\/p>\n

OSHA and NIOSH<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Soon after OSHA and NIOSH were created, exposure to noise was addressed by both agencies.\u00a0 NIOSH published a \u201cCriteria Document\u201d in 1972 and in 1974 OSHA published exposure limits to noise.\u00a0 The OSHA exposure limits were clearly inadequate.\u00a0 NIOSH estimated that about 25% of workers exposed to the OSHA limits would suffer from hearing loss.<\/p>\n

The best solution would have been to lower the Permissible Exposure Limit.\u00a0 Currently OSHA allows exposures to 90 decibels (dBA).\u00a0 NIOSH recommended<\/a> back in 1972 an exposure limit of 85 dBA over 8 hours. But court challenges resulted in decisions that allowed the use of hearing protection (like earplugs) instead of engineering controls, such as quieter equipment, for example air nozzles that are engineered to be much quieter.<\/p>\n

New studies published by National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health show that 20% of workers currently suffer from work-related hearing loss and the percentages are even higher in construction.<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Reliance on hearing protection instead of engineering controls upends the hierarchy of controls which calls for prioritizing the most effective forms of protections like eliminating the hazard or engineering it out. Personal protective equipment like ear plugs is last on the hierarchy of controls because they are less effective to use than engineering controls.<\/p>\n

OSHA subsequently published a \u201cHearing Conservation Amendment\u201d in the early 1980s that laid out the elements of an effective hearing conservation program, although the amendment did not apply to construction, agriculture or the oil and gas industry.<\/p>\n

The Obama administration put hearing protection for construction workers on the Regulatory Agenda<\/a> in 2016, but the Trump administration removed it.<\/p>\n

Why are so many workers allowed to be exposed to conditions that cause hearing loss? The Supreme Court in the Benzene decision stated that a risk of work-related death of 1 in 1000 should be considered a \u201csignificant risk\u201d which OSHA could regulate.\u00a0 So how are we still allowing between one-third to one fifth of workers to suffer permanent hearing loss?<\/p>\n

Part of the problem is the regulatory constipation that beset OSHA as a result of Congressional and White House efforts over the years (often bipartisan) to stifle rulemaking, as well as adverse legal decisions. These changes required increasingly complex risk, economic and feasibility analyses, analysis of the impact of standards on small businesses and evaluation of paperwork requirements. And if the agency can get through all that, the Gingrich era Congressional Review Act gave Congress the authority to just overturn regulations they didn\u2019t like.<\/p>\n

Business lobbyists have long argued that all regulations are bad — stifling profits, abusing small businesses and killing jobs.\u00a0 OSHA has shown, however, that regulations don\u2019t kill workers, workplace hazards do.\u00a0 Regulating hazards like noise that affect so many workers and businesses costs more money and generates more opposition than a standard that may affect a relative small number of workers.<\/p>\n

Of course, the chances of issuing more regulations to protect workers is far less likely now with a Republican Congress and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) that have mad reducing regulations a priority.<\/p>\n

Hearing Loss Isn\u2019t Taken Seriously<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Another issue is that although hearing loss is a significant problem, it doesn\u2019t kill workers outright (although there is evidence that hearing loss can result in reduced situational awareness and has caused workers to be killed, for example, getting backed over by vehicles on noisy construction sites).<\/p>\n

Yet hearing loss can have a dramatic impact on workers and their families and we don\u2019t take it seriously enough.\u00a0 Many construction workers, for example, retire with significant hearing loss which reduces their ability to enjoy retirement.<\/p>\n

Hearing loss can have a dramatic impact on workers and their families and we don\u2019t take it seriously enough.\u00a0 Many construction workers, for example, retire with significant hearing loss which reduces their ability to enjoy retirement.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At a 2000 conference on hearing loss in construction, sponsored by the Laborers\u2019 Health and Safety Fund of North America, NIOSH and OSHA, the Laborers Apprenticeship Director recounted his experience losing his hearing from using jackhammers in metal buildings. He described how, when his sister was dying of cancer, he could not hear her dying words to him.<\/p>\n

Hearing loss has more recently been linked to an increased risk of dementia.<\/p>\n

Other Efforts to Control Noise<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Reducing noise levels would be the best solution and back in the 1970s Congress passed the Noise Control Act<\/a> in 1972 and Quiet Communities Act<\/a> in 1978 which aimed to do just that.\u00a0 EPA had an Office of Noise Abatement and Control (ONAC) which began promulgating regulations<\/a> reducing noise levels from portable air compressors and heavy trucks.\u00a0 But this office was zero-funded by the Reagan Administration and, despite repeated attempts in Congress, was never reinstated.\u00a0 \u00a0(Congress also used to have a Hearing Health Caucus).<\/p>\n

Electrification of cars, trucks, leaf blowers, and construction equipment seems to be coming quickly and could help.\u00a0Other attempts to push industry to reduce noise levels (NIOSH\u2019s\u00a0Buy Quiet program<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Safe-in-Sound award<\/a>), while helpful,\u00a0have only made a dent\u00a0in this problem.<\/p>\n

What Is To Be Done?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

So how can we address this problem and reduce the horrible toll of work-related hearing loss?\u00a0 First, we have to educate the public about the problem and the serious nature of it.\u00a0 There have been some attempts at this in the past (for example, the \u201cDangerous Decibels\u201d<\/a> program to teach high school students and efforts by the National Institute for Deafness and Communication Disorders<\/a> (NIDCD) in the 1990s-2000s).<\/p>\n

Second, for workers who have already suffered work-related hearing loss, the good news is that hearing aids are getting better and cheaper with over-the-counter options. Unfortunately, neither Medicare nor most insurance plans cover hearing aids.<\/p>\n

Third, we need to educate Congress to force OSHA to move forward on a more protective standard that expands coverage to construction, maritime and agricultural workers. While the current Congress seems unlikely to force OSHA to issue more regulations, it\u2019s never too late to educate our representatives about the preventable hazards that are harming this nation\u2019s workforce.<\/p>\n

And finally, we need to stop focusing only on the hazards that result in fatalities.\u00a0 Over 5,000 workers are killed on the job each year, but millions are suffering from work-related hearing loss.\u00a0 They deserve much more attention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What did you say? While it\u2019s true that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has made major progress protecting workers over the last 53 years of its existence, it\u2019s a common misconception that OSHA has been successful in regulating many of the major hazards workers face.\u00a0 There is much that has been left undone. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":10545,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[134,2,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-niosh","category-osha","category-regulations"],"yoast_head":"\nWe Need to Make More Noise About Noise - Confined Space<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Much more needs to be done by OSHA to protect workers against excessive noise that can cause permanent hearing loss.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jordanbarab.com\/confinedspace\/2024\/12\/06\/we-need-to-make-more-noise-about-noise\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"We Need to Make More Noise About Noise - 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