Table 3.
Characteristics of study population by noise exposure quintile at longest job
| O*NET noise exposure scores at longest job (n=3828) | p Trend | |||||
| Quintile 1 (1.795–2.588) (n=695) | Quintile 2 (2.653–2.729) (n=830) | Quintile 3 (2.737–2.868) (n=731) | Quintile 4 (3.121–3.631) (n=805) | Quintile 5 (3.667–4.368) (n=767) | ||
| PTA hearing thresholds* (dB) | 11.0 (±0.4) | 11.9 (±0.3) | 11.7 (±0.3) | 13.5 (±0.4) | 15.9 (±0.6) | <0.0001 |
| Age (y) | 43.8 (±0.5) | 41.8 (±0.5) | 40.9 (±0.5) | 42.0 (±0.6) | 41.4 (±0.6) | 0.0066 |
| Hearing loss† (%) | 8.8 | 8.7 | 8.5 | 12.8 | 17.8 | <0.0001 |
| Noise notch‡ (%) | 13.8 | 14.2 | 11.8 | 22.4 | 27.0 | <0.0001 |
| Sex (male %) | 28.2 | 37.9 | 36.1 | 63.2 | 81.0 | <0.0001 |
| Race/ethnicity (%) | 0.0041 | |||||
| Non-Hispanic white | 76.25 | 75.40 | 75.16 | 64.82 | 68.63 | |
| Non-Hispanic black | 10.09 | 10.30 | 9.70 | 13.81 | 10.12 | |
| Mexican American | 4.02 | 4.66 | 4.73 | 10.69 | 9.98 | |
| Other | 9.64 | 9.63 | 10.41 | 10.68 | 11.27 | |
| Noise exposure at firearm (exposed %) | 3.0 | 7.0 | 4.3 | 10.2 | 12.8 | <0.0001 |
| Noise exposure at recreation (exposed %) | 18.9 | 24.2 | 21.6 | 28.9 | 36.6 | <0.0001 |
*
PTA (pure-tone average) at speech frequencies at 0.5, 1, 2 and 4 kHz, age adjusted.
†
Hearing loss (PTA at speech frequencies >25 dB).
‡
Noise notch (hearing threshold at 3, 4 and/or 6 kHz is at least 10 dB greater than at 1 or 2 kHz and at least 10 dB greater than at 6 or 8 kHz).
O*NET, Occupational Information Network.