Every year, approximately 30 million people in the United States are occupationally exposed to hazardous noise. Noise-related hearing loss has been listed as one of the most prevalent occupational health concerns in the United States for more than 25 years. Thousands of workers in a variety of industries suffer from preventable hearing loss due to high workplace noise levels every year. Since 2004, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has reported that nearly 125,000 workers have suffered significant, permanent hearing loss. Exposure to high levels of noise often found in the Construction Industry can cause permanent hearing loss. Neither surgery nor a hearing aid can help correct this type of hearing loss.
We are looking to have an event similar to the “Mirror Check” and “Electrical Roll-Up” last year and are inviting all alliances’, partnerships, VPP and SHARP sites as well as any other organization willing to provide the training. The attachments to this email have enough material needed for an in-house trainer to provide a quality “Toolbox” or “Tailgate” type meeting at their location and at their own pace.
1) “Listen Up” announcement : Attached is the flyer for the Braintree Area Office’s – OSHA Region 1 – Cooperative and State Programs – “Listen Up” announcement and tips that can be used to identify loud and noisy equipment and initiate preventive measures to reduce the hazards. We want to keep this as simple as possible and very similar to a toolbox type training with a Noisy Equipment Identification component.
2) Instructors guide: The purpose of this guide is to help you present the material distributed for the “Listen Up” Safety Awareness Training. The topics covered in this module are those basically found in the construction industry. However, you may use different materials that cover these topics if you believe that they will be more effective.
3) A PowerPoint version of the”Listen Up” Noise Awareness training can be used directly or modified for your site
4) Protecting Yourself from Noise in Construction booklet: Download the OSHA Publication “Protecting Yourself from Noise in Construction from http://www.osha.gov/Publications/3498noise-in-construction-pocket-guide.pdf
5) If it is appropriate, please post this information on your organizations website as well as other social media outlets. The information can also be found on the following websitesin the coming weeks: http://agcmass.org/ http://www.gwgci.org/ www.associatedsubs.com/ http://www.asseboston.com/asse.htm http://www.capecodlandscapes.org/ http://youthbuildboston.org/ and the Facebook page photo album https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Safety-Training-and-Inspection-Days-New-England/196684140430397 can be easily shared.
– Please post information/documents on your organization/company website or Facebook page if appropriate.
– Please forward/send information via email to your distribution list as appropriate.
– Please post information about the “Listen Up” in any newsletters or trade publications as appropriate.
6) PLEASE VIEW VIDEO AS PART OF TRAINING: How to Properly Fit an Earplug by HL HearForever with 4,116 current views at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LR0MDg9fIM&noredirect=1
7) OSHA “Occupational Noise Exposure page” can be found at https://www.osha.gov/SLTC/noisehearingconservation/evaluation.html Additional Noise and Hearing prevention information and training can be found at: http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/noise/default.html http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/noise/noisemeter.html
8) Participating organizations are asked to printout the evaluation in advance and document the training via their own internal attendance sheets then complete an online course evaluation which will assist in determining of the effectiveness of this event. Please coordinate the totals for your facility/location and have one course evaluation completed per facility/location: : https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/KWS7GR5
