[The determination of the criteria for selecting and using personal means of acoustic protection]. / Determinazione dei criteri per la scelta e la utilizzazione dei mezzi personali di protezione acustica.

ABSTRACT

The most frequent occupational disease in Italy is noise-induced hearing loss. Not only is this disease invalidating and irreversible, it also involves extremely high direct and indirect costs for both the injured worker and the employer. Appropriate preventive measures are therefore essential and include personal protection devices. Recent Italian legislation (DL 277 15/8/91) assigns an important role to personal acoustic protection devices, raising, in certain situations, serious problems in terms of fitness for specific jobs. On the basis of an analysis of the characteristics of the various types of hearing protection aids, including efficacy, capacity of attenuation, influence on intelligibility of speech and perception of danger signals, guidelines are supplied for their best possible use.