One person’s music may be another’s noise. But – too much sound energy can and will cause permanent damage to hearing. Increasingly, environments have become “loud.” Backyards resound with lawn movers, leaf blowers and chain saws. Cities have car horns, screeching brakes, and the sounds of many people talking at once. Factories have machines built for speed and productivity, sometimes without regard to the health of the workers.

In Environmental Health, we discuss noise and sound primarily in Industrial Hygiene (ENVH 302). In our laboratory courses, we work with state-of-the-art sound level meters and dosimeters (measuring the total exposure of workers to sound). Some of our most interesting student research projects have involved sound, including the study of hearing loss in members of local rock bands.

Listed below are a few resources that contain additional information about noise.

The National Institute for Occupational Health and Safety (NIOSH), an organization within the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) maintains an extremely useful website on noise. This web site provides information on noise and health risk, and links to useful publications and other web sites.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, a part of the U.S. Department of Labor, has the responsibility of protecting worker health from excessive exposure to noise. It provides useful information and links to websites on its noise web page.

The Noise Pollution Clearinghouse has the mission of creating “more civil cities and more natural rural and wilderness areas by reducing noise pollution at the source.” It provides information useful to many different types of communities facing problems with noise pollution.