Occupationally Acquired Hearing Loss Among Civilian and Active Duty Firefighters

TL;DRAbstract

Fire fighters are routinely exposed to hazardous noise in excess of Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) recommendations. A study by Reischl (1979) demonstrated that fire fighters are routinely exposed to impulse noises in excess of 115 dBA, and the 8-hour Time Weighted Averages (TWA) were in excess of OSHA recommendations. Tubbs (1991) demonstrated that the average fire fighter exhibited a characteristic noise-induced permanent threshold shift (PTS) that was related to length of service as a fire fighter. One might argue that much of this data is 30 years old, but Tubbs (1995) speculates that the modem mechanized equipment and machinery are getting louder, not softer. There have been numerous studies involving fire-fighters since the early 1980's that have looked at age, length of service, gender, prior military service, and location of the fire station. Tubbs (1991) looked at fire fighters assigned to an airport fire station. While he did find that length of service w

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