We are excited to have you join us for an amazing educational line up, check out the agenda below for the 2025 Conference. Please note that this agenda is subject to change.
In 2024, the National Hearing Conservation Association established a task force to draft a position statement on the use of equivalent rectangular bands (ERBs) in audiometric testing. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration does not require testing at 8000 Hz as part of audiometric monitoring for noise-exposed workers. Although inclusion of 8000 Hz is recommended as a best practice, many workplace hearing conservation programs do not test this frequency. One reason is that pure tone thresholds at 8000 Hz can be unreliable due to the short wavelength of the tone and the potential for standing waves in the ear canal. However, epidemiologic surveys have shown that females are more likely to have a maximum audiometric “notch” at 6000 Hz than males, who typically show a maximum “notch” at 4000 Hz. Without testing 8000 Hz, early noise-induced hearing changes may be missed in women. Recent research has shown that the use of ERBs as audiometric stimuli results in thresholds that have equal or greater reliability than pure tone thresholds, even at 8000 Hz. This presentation will provide an update from the NHCA Task Force on the feasibility and effectiveness of using ERBs in place of pure tones for occupational audiometric monitoring.
