Noise exposure abatement: a perspective from industry occupational health risk assessment reports

ABSTRACT

Background: Occupational health risk assessments are building blocks for occupational health programmes, allowing for the rating of identified risks and the continuous re-evaluation of the effectiveness of abatement measures. In South African industry, occupational health risk assessments are formally documented in reports, which can be presented as demonstration of legal compliance with legislation. Objective: To identify noise abatement measures recorded in noise risk assessment reports of four manufacturing companies and to rate their effectiveness. Methods: We analysed the occupational health risk assessment reports from 21 operational facilities in four South African companies from the manufacturing and utilities sectors to evaluate, through document analysis, the recorded noise abatement measures. Noise abatement measure effectiveness was rated using a preassigned effectiveness percentage scale. Results: Administrative controls and hearing protection devices were the most commonly used noise exposure abatement measures, but hearing conservation programmes were generally poorly formulated. There were inter- and intra-company differences in the qualitative risk assessment approaches used for rating or ranking the noise risk, which led to different risk conclusions and prioritisation outcomes. The calculated control effectiveness of the abatement measures showed that noise exposure remained largely unacceptable 16 of the 21 operational units had unacceptable noise exposures, four had tolerable exposures, and one had broadly acceptable exposures. Conclusion: The four companies' common noise abatement measures, as elements of formalised hearing conservation programmes, which included administrative controls and hearing protection devices, were not effective in reducing noise exposure to the broadly acceptable level, reflective of limited use of engineering controls.