Shooting, sensorineural hearing loss, and workers' compensation

Pure-tone audiograms of 29,953 workers with histories of shooting and occupational noise exposure were analyzed. The analysis was based on the asymmetry of hearing loss. Results of this study show that shooting is related to asymmetrical hearing loss, suggesting that shooting may cause an additional amount of hearing loss other than that due to occupational noise exposure. Asymmetry was found to increase as the length of shooting history increased and was significant only at 2 kHz and above and most prominent at 4 kHz. Results also indicated that as long as compensable frequencies remain below 3 kHz the shooting effect is not likely to influence compensation for workers with histories of less than ten years of shooting.