[Noise induced hearing loss. Evaluation in Belgium in 2025]

The occupational deafness is one the most frequent diseases recognized in occupational medicine. This paper recalls how noxious the noise in working places can be; it describes how to measure it by the definition of the notion of decibel and the evaluation rules within the scope of labour laws. It draws attention to the principle of «globalization», which implies that the expert in charge of the evaluation takes into account the distinction between occupational deafness and other disorders such as age-related hearing loss or transmission defects in the hearing apparatus.