Distribution of Compensable Hearing Loss in Industry

Most State Workers' Compensation Acts base their determinations of impairment for occupational hearing loss on the formula developed by the American Academy of Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology and adopted by the American Medical Association in 1971. The professional literature tends to focus on the monetary awards for total hearing loss and thus gives the impression that extremely severe hearing loss is common among industrial workers. A study of 8,953 industrial employees shows that 1,120, or 12.5%, are compensable. Of these, 61.5% have 5% impairment or less; 74.1% have no more than 10% impairment, and 86.7% are 20% impaired. These findings suggest that hearing professionals have the opportunity to make a major social-economic contribution to industrial management and labor by applying their expertise to the prevention of occupational hearing loss.