Occhealth Bulletin
04 July 2010
Sounding out against the Vuvuzelas
Category: Reviews
The nation should be very proud of the USA soccer team during the World Cup finals. They achieved awesome results during the group matches with two draws (against England and Slovenia) and a win against Algeria. Despite the disappointing loss to Ghana, during the knock-out stages, the team performed extremely well and showed great team spirit. And so with a sense of pride the supporters have made their way back from the long journey home.
There is concern that the supporters will have returned home from South Africa with more than just pride. Love them or hate them the Vuvuzelas, plastic horns modeled on the tribal Kudu antelope horns, with their characteristic noise have featured highly over the last few weeks. Anyone watching the games on TV may have described their sound as an incessant drone likened to the sound of a swarm of bees! It is likely that the trend to sound the horn during team games other than soccer is set to continue. The Florida Marlins already handed out 15,000 similar horns at the game against the Rays on the 24th June. Cody Ross was quoted in a MLB.com news item featured on the Marlins website "I had a headache in like the third inning. I couldn't hear anybody when I was sitting on the bench…"
And that is the problem that is concerning US health and safety officials. The sheer volume of noise generated from hundreds and possibly thousands of vuvuzelas could potentially be damaging to the ears of game supporters, officials and players. In South Africa, researchers monitored the levels of sound in the Loftus Versfeld stadium and discovered that the sound reached “dangerously high levels” - 144 decibels in some cases. The average level of sound was 131 decibels. Just to provide you with a comparison, a jet plane taking off can reach 120 decibels. For those of you not familiar with health and safety regulations, there’s the risk of permanent damage to the ears after just 15 minutes exposure at those levels.
Monitoring sound levels in a workplace situation is taken very seriously indeed. OSHA requires monitoring of individuals who are exposed to noise levels of 85dB or more, over an 8-hour time weighted average. Hearing protection is essential at those levels.
So does that mean it’s wise to wear ear protection at future games? The inventor of the vuvuzela seems to think so as he now intends to supply earplugs with every horn he sells.
If you would like to know more about hearing conservation and the regulations surrounding permitted noise levels, particularly in the workplace, then take a look at the Examinetics, Inc. pathfinder on the subject.