HIGH QUALITY PERSONAL PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT

In March 2019, the World Health Organisation (WHO) launched a free mobile app to help people check their hearing and prompt early intervention in the case of hearing loss. Using a digits-in-noise test, the hearWHO app claims 85 per cent accuracy in identifying potential hearing damage in people aged 18 years and over. Available on […]

Unaddressed hearing loss costs $750 billion worldwide each year and causes lost productivity, cognitive decline, depression, and barriers to education and social integration. Hearing loss has also been shown to significantly increase the risk of dementia by adding to the cognitive load of the brain or accelerating atrophy. With 22 per cent of Australians aged […]

Employers are consistently failing to fulfill their duties to provide a safe workplace, with eleven per cent of construction workers not provided with hearing protection by their employer. The shocking statistic comes from a 2015 Safe Work Australia report titled Work Health & Safety Perceptions: Construction Industry. However the problem goes beyond the construction industry. In […]

Hearing loss due to industrial noise such as machinery, tools and traffic is one of the most widespread yet preventable workplace injuries. Indeed, hearing damage is irreversible and seriously affects quality of life, contributing to dementia, stress, hypertension, tinnitus (ringing in the ears) and psychiatric disorders. Furthermore, a five-year (1999-2004) study of 6307 workers found that […]

Hearing loss is a significant contributor to dementia, according to a new report which found that one third of dementia cases may be preventable, or could be delayed with appropriate lifestyle choices. Combining the work of 24 experts, Dementia prevention, intervention, and care was published in July 2017 in medical journal, The Lancet and presented […]

Ototoxins in the Workplace Indeed, many ototoxins, commonplace chemicals, cause hearing loss, tinnitus, deafness and vertigo. Surprisingly, people are often unaware of the health risks despite being at risk of exposure. Ototoxic chemicals, which can be found in substances such as paints, thinners, degreasers, glues and engine exhaust, travel through the blood stream once they […]

If you have to raise your voice to be heard at a distance of one metre then it’s likely that workplace noise has reached hazardous levels and a noise assessment should be conducted. Given noise-induced hearing loss is entirely preventable, any evidence of it in workers is unacceptable, according to Dr Barry Chesson, a certified […]

Construction workers regularly experience noise levels up to six times the legal exposure limit and up to 75 per cent are developing tinnitus or permanent hearing loss as a result of their job. These figures come from leading Australian audiologist, Dr Ross Dineen who has extensively studied hearing loss and tinnitus in the construction industry. Dineen […]

Exposure to even moderate levels of noise at work is causing gradual but irreversible damage to the hearing of thousands of Australians and they may not even realise it is occurring. An Australian Government report states that manufacturing, construction and transport are the industries facing the highest risk of Noise Induced Hearing Loss (NIHL) and […]

High noise levels in the workplace can cause injury to workers, mainly the permanent or temporary loss of hearing. It can also be an underlying cause of other health conditions such as stress, increased heart rate and hypertension. On top of that, interference due to distracting sounds may cause miscommunication among workers which can lead […]