Impact Assessment of Workers on Short Term Exposure within the Recommended Permissible Noise Exposure Limit (85 - 90 dBA)

As occupational safety and health become a focus in developing third world countries like the Philippines, research, test, and measurement were given investment to improve the status of health and safety. This study sought to determine the effect of 85 to 90 dBA exposure to workers in a controlled environment. Age, work experience, and gender were also assessed for possible correlation on the performance while exposed to different noise levels. One at a time, workers proceed to the audio isolation booth with observation window, controlled temperature, relative humidity, lightings, and noise level to complete three tasks namely abstract and logic test for 60 minutes, simplified mathematics test for 30 minutes, and set-up activity for 15 minutes. Each worker has to complete six sets of tests with a different continuous noise exposure level of 85 to 90 dBA. Observations of incidents inside the booth were also noted in the results. Workers perform best with a mean of 72% for 85 dBA in declining pattern to 38% performance for 90 dBA noise exposure for the Abstract and logic test. The same pattern was observed for a simplified mathematics test with the mean of 86.80% for 85 dB dropping to 64% for 90 dBA exposure while the actual set-up activity obtained 65% mean for worker completion when exposed to 85 dBA sliding to 35% for 90 dBA. In addition, the tallied health and safety issues raised by the workers and notes by the observers resulted in an increasing trend from 5% for 85 dBA, 11% for 86 to 88 dBA, 26% for 89 dBA, and 37% for 90 dBA. On the other hand, Pearson correlation confirms the negative correlation of noise level to abstract and logic, simple mathematics, and practical assembly set-up while noise level has a positive correlation with Health and Safety issues. Overall, if the 90 dBA noise level or higher is maintained in a specific workplace without any controls or interventions to lower down the noise level, the productivity and efficiency of workers will be low while their health and safety might be at risk.