Valutazione dell'adeguatezza dei dispositivi di protezione individuali di protezione uditiva

At present, attenuation values reported on the hearing protection device (HPD) la-bel are strongly overestimated due to an evaluation method inappropriate for the envi-ronments in which they have to be used: the workplaces. An alternative test protocol was validated and published as standard. It should be transposed in the regulatory and legislative scenario and then adopted by manufacturers. Meanwhile, derating schemes proposed by NIOSH may be applied for reducing the labelled attenuation data, in spite of their roughness. Moreover, attenuation values differ from subject to subject. Especially when expo-sure levels are high or hearing loss is worsening, it could thus be necessary to evaluate the attenuation provided by the hearing protector on each worker. To overcome this problem, the assessment of the hearing threshold levels on a subject with and without the HPD could be integrated into the annual audiometry program.