30 Canadian Occupational Safety | www.cos-mag.com
W
hile today's youth are rarely seen without headphones in their ears at the mall, on the bus
or at the dinner table, they aren't quite as enthusiastic when it comes to putting in earplugs
at work. Nearly one in five young workers is not wearing hearing protection, according to
data collected by WorkSafeBC from more than 160,000 hearing tests. Nineteen per cent
of workers age 21 or under reported not wearing hearing protection, compared to 12 per
cent of workers of all ages.
"It's an immaturity to the overall long-term effects of prolonged high volumes," says Cameron Mitchell, a
consultant with Kasa Consulting in Calgary. "The attitude is: 'It's not affecting me now, so why is it a big
deal if I'm not wearing my hearing protection?'"
When looking at specific industries, the WorkSafeBC data found 24 per cent of young workers
in construction were not wearing hearing protection, compared to 13 per cent of workers over
the age of 50 and 11 per cent of workers in all other age groups.
"Construction is almost the worst-case scenario as far as hearing conservation," says Brad
Witt, director of hearing conservation at Honeywell Safety Products in Smithfield, R.I. "It's
situations with lots of intermittent noise. It's not like you work in a factory and put on hearing
protection first thing and leave it on all day. In construction, it's in and out and in and out, and
you might be doing something quiet but the contractor next to you suddenly starts up something
loud. It's a very difficult environment as far as hearing protection."
Research from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) in the
United States has found a typical 25-year-old carpenter has the hearing of a non-noise-exposed
50 year old.
By Amanda Silliker
Young workers who
aren't using earplugs
at work now will pay
the price later
