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Road Traffic Noise Exposure and Hearing Impairment Among Traffic Policemen in Surat, Western India

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Abstract

Among all of the sources responsible for noise pollution, traffic related sources are of great environmental concern and increasing level of discomfort in urban areas with increasing traffic concentration. It will be a larger and serious problem in the future, if effective precautions are not taken addressed and attended to. Hence, a study was undertaken to measure the levels of road traffic noise at major intersections of Surat city, located in Western India and assess the hearing impairment among the exposed group of population i.e. the traffic policemen. Manual noise measurements and vehicle counts were performed at three of the busiest traffic intersections in the city for a period of 12 h. Audiometric screening was done on 46 policemen working at these intersections to determine the occurrence of hearing impairment. At all the three intersections, Leq measured was well above the permissible levels of 65 dBA for daytime. The Lmax recorded for three intersections were 84.6 dBA (07:36 pm), 87.3 dBA (06:32 pm) and 85.6 dBA (11:41 am). Audiometric screening showed that only 10 policemen (22%) had normal hearing. Slight, moderate and severe hearing impairment was recorded among 13 (28%), 18 (39%) and 5 (11%) policemen respectively. Of the total 46 policemen, none had profound impairment (deafness, hearing loss >81 dB). Of the 36 policemen having hearing impairment, 27 had bilateral impairment.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Civil Engineering Department, S. V. National Institute of Technology, Surat, Gujarat, India

    B. N. Tandel & J. E. M. Macwan

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  1. B. N. Tandel
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  2. J. E. M. Macwan
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Correspondence to B. N. Tandel.

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Tandel, B.N., Macwan, J.E.M. Road Traffic Noise Exposure and Hearing Impairment Among Traffic Policemen in Surat, Western India. J. Inst. Eng. India Ser. A 98, 101–105 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40030-017-0210-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40030-017-0210-6

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