Analysis of the effect of hand-transmitted vibration on hearing loss in male noise-exposed workers / 中国职业医学

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the combined effect of noise and hand-transmitted vibration on hearing loss in male noise-exposed workers. Methods A total of 952 male noise-exposed workers from an automobile manufacturing enterprise were selected as the research subjects using judgment sampling method. Occupational epidemiological surveys, assessments of occupational hazards in workplace, and pure-tone audiometry tests were conducted on the research subjects, and they were divided into low-level noise group, low-level combined group, high-level noise group, and high-level combined group according to whether the noise exposure level exceeded the national standard and whether they were jointly exposed to hand-transmitted vibration. The joint effects of noise and hand-transmitted vibration on hearing loss were analyzed. Results The detection rate of hearing loss in 952 noise-exposed workers was 21.7%. The detection rate of hearing loss of four groups, from high to low, was as follows： high-level combined group, high-level noise group, low-level combined group, and low-level noise group (44.9% vs 32.7% vs 12.9% vs 5.7%, P<0.01). The results of multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that the risk of hearing loss in the low-level noise group, the low-level combined group, the high-level noise group and the high-level combined group increased sequentially after adjusting for the confounding factors such as age, education level, smoking, drinking, listening to music with headphones, frequency of wearing noise-blocking earplugs and body mass index. The risk of hearing loss in the high-level noise group was 8.62 times more than that of the low-level noise group (P<0.01). The risk of hearing loss in the low-level noise combined group was 2.50 times more than that of the low-level noise group (P<0.01). The risks of hearing loss in the high-level combined group were 5.76 and 1.67 times more than that of the low-level combined group and the high-level noise group. Conclusion Combined exposure to noise and hand-transmitted vibration can increase the risk of hearing loss in male noise-exposed workers, and the higher the noise intensity, the greater the synergistic effect. Hand-transmitted vibration is a synergistic risk factor for occupational noise-induced hearing loss.