Journal of Environmental and Occupational Medicine, Volume. 42, Issue 7, 793(2025)
Roles of A- and C-weighted kurtosis adjustment for equivalent sound level in evaluating occupational hearing loss
Temporal kurtosis (without frequency weighting, i.e., Z-weighted kurtosis) can evaluate noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL). However, few studies have considered the function of frequency weighting (A- or C-weighted) kurtosis on NIHL.ObjectiveTo study the significance of A- and C-weighted kurtosis adjustment for equivalent sound level (L′EX,8 h) in evaluating occupational hearing loss.MethodsA cross-sectional survey was used to select 973 noise-exposed workers in seven industries as the subjects. The noise exposure of all workers was assessed by distributions of A-, C-, and Z-weighted kurtosis (e.g., KA, KC, and KZ) and respective adjusted equivalent sound level (e.g., L′EX,8 h-KA, L′EX,8 h-KC, and L′EX,8 h-KZ). The significance of A- and C-weighted kurtosis in evaluating NIHL was evaluated by correlations between three types of L′EX,8 h and NIHL, and improvement of noise-induced permanent threshold shift (NIPTS) underestimation predicted by the ISO prediction model (Acoustics—Estimation of noise-induced hearing loss, ISO 1999-2013).ResultsThe median KA, KC, and KZ were 68.33, 28.22, and 19.82, respectively. The binary logistic regression showed that LEX,8 h-KA, LEX,8 h-KC, and L′EX,8 h-KZ were risk factors for NIHL (OR>1, P<0.001). The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve showed that when the outcome variable was noise-induced hearing impairment (NIHI), the areas under the curves corresponding to L′EX,8 h-KA, L′EX,8 h-KC, and L′EX,8 h-KZ were 0.625, 0.628, and 0.625, respectively. When the outcome variable was high-frequency noise-induced hearing loss (HFNIHL), the areas under the curves corresponding to L′EX,8 h-KA, L′EX,8 h-KC, and L′EX,8 h-KZ were 0.624, 0.623, and 0.622, respectively (P<0.05). The order of underestimation improvement values predicted by L′EX,8 h for NIPTS1234 was: L′EX,8 h-KA (4.68 dB HL)>L′EX,8 h-KC (4.38 dB HL)>L′EX,8 h-KZ (4.28 dB HL) (P<0.001). The order of underestimation improvement values predicted by L′EX,8 h-K for NIPTS346 was: L′EX,8 h-KA (7.20 dB HL)>L′EX,8 h-KC (6.83 dB HL)>L′EX,8 h-KZ (6.71 dB HL) (P<0.001).ConclusionThe adjustment of A- and C-weighted kurtosis to equivalent sound level LEX,8 h can effectively improve the accuracy of the ISO 1999 prediction model in NIPTS prediction, and compared with the C-weighted, the A-weighted kurtosis can improve the result of the ISO 1999 prediction model in terms of underestimating NIPTS.
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LIU Haiying, WU Linjie, LI Yang, LI Jinzhe, XIN Jiarui, ZOU Hua, QIU Wei, SHEN Tong, ZHANG Meibian. Roles of A- and C-weighted kurtosis adjustment for equivalent sound level in evaluating occupational hearing loss[J]. Journal of Environmental and Occupational Medicine, 2025, 42(7): 793
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Received: Nov. 11, 2024
Accepted: Aug. 25, 2025
Published Online: Aug. 25, 2025
The Author Email: ZHANG Meibian (zhangmb@niohp.chinacdc.cn)