Table 4
Estimated number of cases of hearing difficulty and tinnitus in adults aged 35–64 years attributable to occupational noise exposure in Great Britain
| Severe hearing difficulty† | Persistent tinnitus‡ | Either or both | |
|---|---|---|---|
| *Ever worked in a noisy place where there was a need to shout to be heard. | |||
| †Severe difficulty in hearing or can't hear at all, or use of hearing aid, or both. | |||
| ‡Ringing, buzzing, or whistling in the head or ears most or all of the time over the past 12 months. | |||
| The PRs were adjusted for age (in three bands), tiredness or stress, frequent headaches, and smoking habits. The prevalence of exposure and the number of cases in the population were estimated after standardising the sample estimates according to the 1991 census estimate of the age distribution of men and women nationally. Estimates have been rounded to the nearest hundred. Bootstrapped CIs for the attributable numbers were based on 200 resampling iterations. | |||
| Men | |||
| PR (ever v never employed in a noisy job)* | 2.9 | 2.1 | 2.3 |
| Attributable proportion | 50.5% | 36.0% | 39.8% |
| Attributable no. in Great Britain | 153000 | 266300 | 387400 |
| (95% CI) | (88600–217300) | (175600–357000) | (277100–497700) |
| Women | |||
| PR (ever v never employed in a noisy job)* | 1.8 | 2.5 | 2.2 |
| Attributable proportion | 12.4% | 20.9% | 17.9% |
| Attributable no. in Great Britain | 25800 | 84000 | 97200 |
| (95% CI) | (0–56000) | (37900–130200) | (47500–147000) |
