Worker Attitudes Towards Hearing Protection, and How to Change Them

Hazardous noise is not a new problem in the workplace, so there are many attitudes and habits that are entrenched among exposed workers. In their comprehensive study prepared in 2002, the UK Institute of Occupational Medicine studied the human factor in hearing protection — worker attitudes, risk perception and behavior.¹ Their findings confirm many beliefs about workers' attitudes toward hearing conservation, but also uncovered a few unexpected results. Most importantly, the study offers a host of recommendations on how to change existing attitudes and behavior of noise-exposed workers.

The UK researchers surveyed 280 workers at 18 companies across several industries. The study included a variety of large, medium and small employers. In addition to the survey of noise-exposed workers, a separate survey was administered to the managers at those companies to compare responses with the workers. This comparison tells us if workers perceive the hearing conservation programmed the same way it is perceived by the managers.

In the second phase of the study, four companies were selected for intervention actions. Training programs in hearing conservation, tailored to the needs of the work force, were presented at these four companies, and the post-intervention results were evaluated 8 weeks after the training to determine if behavioral changes could be measured. After implementing many of these recommendations at four companies, the researchers found a measurable 70 percent improvement in observed use of hearing protectors.

WHAT RESEARCHERS FOUND

Workers in these 18 companies demonstrated good knowledge in the basic hazards of noise (recognizing that loud noise damages hearing permanently). Only 10 of the 280 respondents could identify the regulatory limit of hazardous noise (85 dBA), nor did workers know that a noise level of 93 dBA is twice as loud as 90 dBA.

Two-thirds of the workers recognized that their company had a hearing conservation program, and this was far more likely to be true in the larger companies (85 percent of workers in large companies). Even though their workplace did have an ongoing program, 24 percent of workers were unaware of its existence.

Among employers with noisy worksites, the biggest misunderstanding about noise was the concept of time-weighted average exposures. Rather than calculate the average 8-hour or 10-hour exposures in a noisy shop, many employers simply designated all areas in their facility with occasional peaks over 85 dBA as being noise-hazardous. This means certain areas were inaccurately designated as noise-hazardous, since average noise levels were below the 85 dB limit. Such overprotection can lead to a mistrust of the program when workers are required to wear hearing protection in areas that usually are not noise-hazardous.

There was one unsettling trend related to the size of noisy companies. Large companies rightly tended to use engineering and administrative controls to reduce noise exposures, and relied upon PPE only after pursuing those other controls first. Small companies, on the other hand, showed a heavy over-reliance upon PPE, perhaps because they lack the understanding of regulations and the hierarchy of controls, and had no trained staff to recommend engineering controls. Compared to their larger counterparts, small employers relied upon word of mouth for knowledge about regulations.

There also was a disturbing disparity when the survey responses of managers were compared to the responses of their noise-exposed workers. At many worksites where employers provided hearing conservation training, workers had little recollection of the training or denied ever receiving it:

• When hearing conservation training was provided at new-hire induction, only 27 percent of workers recognized they had been trained.

• When hearing conservation training had been provided by posters, only 46 percent of workers recalled receiving the information. When training materials were in the form of a leaflet, only 39 percent recalled receiving training.