Auditory and non-auditory effects of noise on health

Noise is pervasive in everyday life and can cause both auditory and non-auditory health eff ects. Noise-induced hearing loss remains highly prevalent in occupational settings, and is increasingly caused by social noise exposure (eg, through personal music players). Our understanding of molecular mechanisms involved in noise-induced haircell and nerve damage has substantially increased, and preventive and therapeutic drugs will probably become available within 10 years. Evidence of the non-auditory eff ects of environmental noise exposure on public health is growing. Observational and experimental studies have shown that noise exposure leads to annoyance, disturbs sleep and causes daytime sleepiness, aff ects patient outcomes and staff performance in hospitals, increases the occurrence of hypertension and cardiovascular disease, and impairs cognitive performance in schoolchildren. In this Review, we stress the importance of adequate noise prevention and mitigation strategies for public health.

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Auditory and non-auditory eff ects of noise on health

Alarm fatigue is a national problem and the number one medical device technology hazard in 2012. The problem of alarm desensitization is multifaceted and related to a high false alarm rate, poor positive predictive value, lack of alarm standardization, and the number of alarming medical devices in hospitals today. This integrative review synthesizes research and non-research findings published between 1/1/2000 and 10/1/2011 using The Johns Hopkins Nursing Evidence-Based Practice model. Seventy-two articles were included. Research evidence was organized into five main themes: excessive alarms and effects on staff; nurse's response to alarms; alarm sounds and audibility; technology to reduce false alarms; and alarm notification systems. Non-research evidence was divided into two main themes: strategies to reduce alarm desensitization, and alarm priority and notification systems. Evidence-based practice recommendations and gaps in research are summarized.

/pdf/monitor-alarm-fatigue-an-integrative-review-4jyt4oz7s0.pdf

Monitor alarm fatigue: an integrative review.

There is increasing concern about the effects of pile driving and other anthropogenic (human-generated) sound on fishes. Although there is a growing body of reports examining this issue, little of the work is found in the peer-reviewed literature. This review critically examines both the peer-reviewed and 'grey' literature, with the goal of determining what is known and not known about effects on fish. A companion piece provides an analysis of the available data and applies it to estimate noise exposure criteria for pile driving and other impulsive sounds. The critical literature review concludes that very little is known about effects of pile driving and other anthropogenic sounds on fishes, and that it is not yet possible to extrapolate from one experiment to other signal parameters of the same sound, to other types of sounds, to other effects, or to other species.

The effects of anthropogenic sources of sound on fishes.

Introduction Human Factors and Ergonomics in Health Care and Patient Safety Human Factors and Patient Safety: Continuing Challenges Macroergonomics and Systems A Historical Perspective and Overview of Macroergonomics Work System Design in Health Care Sociotechnical System Design in Health Care Clinical Microsystems in Health Care: The Role of Human Factors in Shaping the Microsystem The Artichoke Systems Approach for Identifying the Why of Error Organizational Learning in Health Care The Relationship Between Physician Professionalism and Health Care Systems Change Collaborative Initiatives for Patient Safety Job and Organizational Design Job Stress in Health Care Workers Effect of Workplace Stress on Patient Outcomes Safety Culture in Health Care Burnout in Health Care Human Factors of Transition of Care Reliability Enhancement and Demise at Back Bay Medical Center's Children's Hospital The Relation Between Teamwork and Patient Safety Physical Ergonomics Human Factors in Hospital Safety Design Physical Environment in Health Care Physical Ergonomics in Health Care Evidence-Based Interventions for Patient Care Ergonomics Ergonomics: Noise and Alarms in Health Care An Ergonomic Dilemma Technology Human Factors Engineering and the Design of Medical Devices Patient Safety and Technology: A Two-Edged Sword New Technology Implementation in Health Care Robotics in Health Care: HF Issues in Surgery Human Computer Interaction in Health Care Re-Presenting Reality: The Human Factors of Health Care Information Human Error Behind Human Error: Taming Complexity to Improve Patient Safety Human Error Reduction Strategies in Health Care Medical Failure Taxonomies Human Factors of Health Care Reporting Systems Communicating About Unexpected Outcomes and Errors Human Factors and Ergonomics Methodologies Cognitive Work Analysis in Health Care Human Factors Risk Management in Medical Products Work Systems and Process Analysis in Health Care Video Analysis in Health Care Usability Evaluation in Health Care Assessing Safety Culture and Climate in Health Care Incident Analysis in Health Care Human Factors and Ergonomics Interventions Ergonomics Programs and Effective Interventions Quality Improvement in Health Care Work Organization Interventions in Health Care Teamwork Training for Patient Safety: Best Practices and Guiding Principles Tilting the Culture in Health Care: Using Cultural Strengths to Transform Organizations Specific Applications Human Factors and Ergonomics in Intensive Care A Process-Oriented Approach Human Factors and Ergonomics in the Emergency Department Human Factors and Ergonomics in Pediatrics Human Factors and Ergonomics in Home Care Human Factors and Ergonomics in Nursing Home Care Human Factors and Ergonomics in Primary Care

Handbook of Human Factors and Ergonomics in Health Care and Patient Safety (Human Factors and Ergonomics Series) (Human Factors and Ergonomics Series)

Noise in healthcare settings, such as hospitals, often exceeds levels recommended by health organizations. Although researchers and medical professionals have raised concerns about the effect of these noise levels on spoken communication, objective measures of behavioral intelligibility in hospital noise are lacking. Further, no studies of intelligibility in hospital noise used medically relevant terminology, which may differentially impact intelligibility compared to standard terminology in speech perception research and is essential for ensuring ecological validity. Here, intelligibility was measured using online testing for 69 young adult listeners in three listening conditions (i.e., quiet, speech-shaped noise, and hospital noise: 23 listeners per condition) for four sentence types. Three sentence types included medical terminology with varied lexical frequency and familiarity characteristics. A final sentence set included non-medically related sentences. Results showed that intelligibility was negatively impacted by both noise types with no significant difference between the hospital and speech-shaped noise. Medically related sentences were not less intelligible overall, but word recognition accuracy was significantly positively correlated with both lexical frequency and familiarity. These results support the need for continued research on how noise levels in healthcare settings in concert with less familiar medical terminology impact communications and ultimately health outcomes.

https://asa.scitation.org/doi/pdf/10.1121/10.0011394

Intelligibility of medically related sentences in quiet, speech-shaped noise, and hospital noise.

Verbal communication between patients and healthcare providers is an important piece of successful healthcare delivery. Less familiar medical terminology coupled with noisy hospital environments can lead to speech intelligibility challenges between healthcare providers and patients. Prior results showed lower word recognition accuracy for lower familiarity and frequency words and in the presence of noise in younger adults (Bent et al., 2022). The current study expands on the previous work with the inclusion of older adults and an additional noise masking condition. Online listening tests were conducted to study the impacts of word familiarity and background noise on speech perception in younger (age 18–35) and older adults (age 60–85). Participants were presented with a corpus of 160 medically related sentences with varying word familiarity and frequency characteristics, and word recognition accuracy was recorded. Sentences were presented in quiet, hospital noise, speech-shaped noise, and speech-shaped noise modulated by the hospital noise envelope, a novel condition from previous work. Results highlight a comparison of speech recognition performance between the two age groups. Effects of sentence familiarity/frequency rating and type of noise masker on speech intelligibility are discussed. [Work supported by the James S. McDonnell Foundation https://doi.org/10.37717/2021-3028.]

Erica E. Ryherd

Papers

Intelligibility of medically related sentences in quiet, speech-shaped noise, and hospital noise.

Medically related speech: Impacts of age, familiarity, and noise on word recognition

Final Report for ASHRAE 1322-RP "Productivity and Perception Based Evaluation of Indoor Noise Criteria"