Preventing Occupational Noise-Induced Hearing Loss: NIOSH's Six-Step Guide

Noise is part of everyday life, but noise-induced hearing loss is nearly always preventable. This NIOSH guide helps employers and safety professionals create safer, quieter workplaces.

Preventing occupational hearing loss. Image from CDC's page.

Why reduce noise

Repeated exposure to sounds of 85 A-weighted decibels (dBA) or more can cause permanent hearing loss, and is linked to:

• ringing in the ears (tinnitus);
• high blood pressure (hypertension);
• cardiovascular disease.

High noise can also contribute to serious accidents and injuries, by making workers less aware of what's around them — signals, alarms and spoken warnings.

Bringing workplace noise below 85 dBA is the best way to prevent occupational hearing loss and other harm. It also brings less stress and fatigue, higher productivity and morale, better relations with management, and lower workers' compensation costs.

The six steps

Until noise is below 85 dBA, protect workers with an effective hearing loss prevention program (HLPP) — sometimes called a hearing loss conservation program. The guide follows the structure of an HLPP and the hierarchy of controls, aiming to protect workers as much as possible while saving time and money:

1. Understand noise exposure — how to define and assess noise.
2. Eliminate or reduce noise.
3. Implement engineering controls.
4. Employ administrative controls.
5. Provide hearing protection.
6. (Re)evaluate and document — including monitoring workers for hearing loss and finding improvements.

Did you know? If the first two steps bring noise to safe levels, you don't need a full program, as long as you can verify exposures stay below 85 dBA.

Videos for construction

Protecting Against Noise Hazards at My Job — transcript. NIOSH.

Protecting My Workers Against Noise Hazards — transcript. NIOSH.

More detail: the NIOSH Practical Guide for Preventing Occupational Hearing Loss.

Sources

Based on "Preventing Occupational Noise-Induced Hearing Loss," National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; a work of the United States government in the public domain. The videos, missing when the page was imported, are restored from the Internet Archive's copies of CDC's files (2026-09-27).