Comparison of occupational hearing losses among military engineers and their civilian counterparts.

Abstract

A previous study (Chandler and Fletcher, J. Aud. Res., 1983, 23, 23-32) examined group hearing loss of 209 U.S. Army engineers by comparing current with reference audiograms. The sample was categorized by military occupation specialty, age, and time on job. The present study reports comparable data for 187 civilian engineers on the same Army post exposed to essentially the same noise. These had less hearing loss than their military counterparts. Some reasons are suggested, such as attrition of the civilian workforce because of hearing problems, and a likely greater exposure of the military engineers to noises not job-related. Age was less important than time on the job. Both groups, however, exhibited significantly lower hearing levels than the industrial population of Glorig et al (Am. Acad. Ophthalmol. Otolaryngol., 1957) at the 1954 Wisconsin State Fair, possibly because both military and civilian personnel at this Army post had been for some years in an aggressive hearing conservation program.