Julia D. Royster
Environmental Noise Consultants, Inc., P.O. Box 30698, Raleigh, NC 27622
Larry H. Royster
NC State University, Raleigh, NC 27695
Pamela S. Calliari
Associated Hear. Services, Raleigh, NC
Kelly L. Tennyson
Developmental Evaluation Ctr., Raleigh, NC
Employers often assert that it is fruitless to protect employees from noise at work because workers' off-the-job noise exposures are sufficient to cause significant hearing loss. Certainly, the lower the action level for including employees in a hearing conservation program (HCP) is set, the greater the potential contribution of nonoccupational exposures becomes. This paper will describe the types of nonoccupational noise exposures reported by employees in HCPs at several industries on annual auditory history questionnaires and in interviews. In order to evaluate the contribution of nonoccupational noise exposure to workers' hearing thresholds, employees were grouped according to their self-reported amount of off-the-job noise. Results of analyses on age-corrected hearing levels will be presented.