2007, Piran, Slovenia

Environmental Ergonomics XII
Igor B. Mekjavic, Stelios N. Kounalakis & Nigel A.S. Taylor (Eds.), © BIOMED, Ljubljana 2007
540
HEALTH RISKS INDUCED BY AGRICULTURE NOISE
Qiuqing Geng, Niklas Adolfsson
Swedish Institute of Agricultural and Environmental Engineering
Box 7033, SE-750 07 Uppsala, Sweden
Contact person: qiuqing.geng@jti.se
INTRODUCTION
Hazardous noise is a constantly increasing problem in the working environment. This can
directly or indirectly affect health and increase the risk for accidents by interacting with other
work. Excessive noise damages the hair cells in the cochlea, leading to loss of hearing. Such a
loss is the most prevalently irreversible disease in many countries (WHO, 1997). According
to European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, around 60 million employees in Europe
are exposed to potentially dangerous levels of noise for at least a quarter of their time at work
and noise induced hearing loss is accounting for about one third of all work-related diseases
(EU-OSHA, 2005). In Sweden, agricultural workers have been reported to have the highest
figure (31.8%) of occupationally hearing impairment among Swedish professions (HRF,
2006). It has been observed that many excessive noise sources occur in agriculture, such as
machinery used on livestock (Norén, 1987; Møberg, 2003; Öberg, et al., 2003). A
questionnaire survey found ten different noise sources in average on Swedish farm. These
sources interfered with speech and induced a complexity of the noise exposure when working
on a farm (Öberg, et al., 2003). Therefore, an important question arises how these hazardous
noise exposures can be judged and reduced in the agricultural working environments.
When evaluating the risk of hearing loss or determining whether a work regulation noise limit
is exceeded, the noise exposure should be measured and calculated. To calculate the noise
exposure level over a working day, both the length of time of each noise task and the sound
level near the ears must be known. Then the partial noise exposure for each noise task can be
calculated as well as the noise exposure level for a whole working day. To sum up this
exposure, time-weighted average sound levels are used. Based on a dose-effect assumption,
the critical level for noise-induced hearing loss is set to 85 dB(A) during an 8-hour working
day (ISO 1999; AFA 2005:16). In this study, we aimed at evaluating the risk for hearing
impairment among agricultural workers through investigating both existent noise sources on
farms, and worker’s daily noise exposure during a working day.
METHODS
The study was conducted by investigating both sound levels of noise sources on the farms and
noise exposure among agricultural workers during a working day. The measurements were
carried out on thirty-three Swedish livestock farms with dairy or pig production and their own
fodder production as well. The noise sources were measured in terms of sound level (Aweighted)
by using a sound level meter (2238 Mediator, Brüel & Kjær). The sound levels of
noise sources were measured 1 metre from the source and at ear-height repeatedly according
to a standardized method (SS-EN 61672). The noise dose was measured with a dosimeter
(Dose Badge, Cirrus Research Plc) placed on the farmer’s shoulder for a whole working day.
During each measuring the working duration for each action was recorded to find a
correlation of the result with daily work activities of the farmers. In addition, using of hearing
protector by participant was observed as well.