An Industrial Study of the Kurtosis Metric for Evaluation of Noise Induced Hearing Loss (NIHL)
Abstract
This study will address the following important issues in noise research: 1) determine if the kurtosis metric provides more value in identifying high level complex industrial noise exposures that have the potential to increase risk of NIHL than the traditional energy based approach for hearing conservation; 2) demonstrate the need for a new approach to noise measurement and lay the foundation for an approach that is based on quantifying the statistical properties of the noise waveform; and 3) create a large database that will fill a NIOSH acknowledged void in the noise effects database currently available to exposure criteria designers. This will be addressed as follows:(1) Create a human database (N=2,400; 1950 noise exposed, 450 control) to test several hypotheses for NIHL research. This will consist of the following: i) digitally record complete shift-long temporal waveforms of the noise that individual workers are exposed to (8-hour) in a variety of heavy industries, and ii) obtain audiograms from workers exposed to each of the specific noise environments.(2) Calculate and use kurtosis as a modifier of the equal energy hypothesis (EEH) to determine if statistical models using kurtosis along with Leq improve the predictability of NIHL. Three models will also be tested and compared to Leq alone.This proposal is an extension of our research in an animal model and with humans (in collaboration with the Zhejiang and Gansu Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention in China) to develop a more precise approach to the measurement and evaluation of noise environments.Successfully completing this study will allow us to determine if using both the kurtosis and energy metrics can more accurately estimate the subsequent hearing loss from complex noise exposures. A better understanding of the role of the kurtosis metric in NIHL may lead to its incorporation into a new generation of more predictive hearing risk assessment procedures for noise exposure provided that human exposure and hearing loss data can be acquired from suitably designed epidemiological studies.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Feb 03, 2017
- Source ID
- N000141712198
Entities
People
- Wei Qiu
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research
- Research Foundation for the State University of New York
- United States Navy