Extra-auditory effects of noise exposure in school workers and preventive measures: a systematic review.

Objective: Noise is still today one of the main causes of occupational diseases; in fact, in Italy in the three-year period 2019-2022, hearing loss represented 15% of all occupational diseases recognized by the National Institute for Insurance against Accidents at Work. The extra-auditory effects related to noise exposure also require particular attention, because they can interfere with mental activities that require concentration, memory and ability to deal with complex problems, causing sleep and learning disorders. For this reason, acoustic comfort is considered a fundamental requirement for obtaining an optimal degree of well-being in closed environments.

The insertion loss distribution function of an ear plug, and its implications for the ear plug acceptability.

Introduction: In order to establish the acceptability of a hearing protector device (HPD) used in a given noisy environment, two key elements must be known with the highest possible accuracy: the insertion loss of the HPD and the associated variability. Methods leading to objective field measurements of insertion loss have become widely available in the last decade and have started to replace the traditional subjective "Real-Ear Attenuation at Threshold" (REAT) laboratory measurements. The latter have long been known to provide a gross overestimate of the attenuation, thus leading to a strong underestimate of the worker's exposure to noise.

Assessment of noise exposure for basketball sports referees.

Dosimetric measurements carried out on basketball referees have shown that whistles not only generate very high peak sound pressure levels, but also play a relevant role in determining the overall exposure to noise of the exposed subjects. Because of the peculiar geometry determined by the mutual positions of the whistle, the microphone, and the ear, experimental data cannot be directly compared with existing occupational noise exposure and/or action limits. In this article, an original methodology, which allows experimental results to be reliably compared with the aforementioned limits, is presented.

Occupational exposure to physical agents: the new Italian database for risk assessment and control.

This article presents the new Italian database of physical agents, which is available at http://www.portaleagentifisici.it.

[Noise in fishing vessels].

The present research concerns the noise analysis of five vessels during navigation and fishing activities. In locations where staff operates, sound levels (produced substantially by the engine) were close to 90 dB(A); within the rest areas the noise is also quite significant. On the basis of working time, exposure levels ranged between 80 and 90 dB(A).