Twenty-nine audiometric tests undergone by an employee over a 26-year employment period in a structural maintenance shop at a large petrochemical company are analyzed. At retirement, the employee was diagnosed as having irreversible sensorineural hearing loss. Since company studies yielded average noise level measurements of 90 dBA within 1.83 m of operating equipment, the relationship between continuous noise and sensorineural hearing loss in the conversational frequencies is examined. Results suggest that the relationship is linear, and that auditory capability consistently deteriorates over long periods of exposure.
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