Abstract

Percentile distributions of hearing levels by age have been developed for male and female subjects in the black and white NINEPs which were originally published as mean data [L. H. Royster and W. G. Thomas, Am. Ind. Hyg. Assoc. J. 40, 504–511 (1979); L. H. Royster etal., Am. Ind. Hyg. Assoc. J. 41, 113–119 (1980)]. These reference populations were screened to exclude persons with more than 2 weeks of occupational noise exposure, but they include all other age-effect influences: Nonoccupational noise exposure, pathology, and presbycusis. The results for white subjects are similar to the U.S. Public Health Service data in Annex B of international standard ISO 1999:1990 (E). However, black subjects exhibit much better hearing, similar to the screened presbycusis data in Annex A of ISO 1999:1990 (E). The difference in threshold distributions will be explored for the better ear versus the binaural average, and for subgroups with different characteristics.

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