Comparing Standards for Safe Noise-Exposure

Many people think of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) when they think of protecting workers' health. These data show that other organizations, namely the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and ANSI/NIOSH have safer standards which include a larger margin of safety.

For a discussion of the different standards, see Alice Suter's comments to OSHA.

EPA and WHO ANSI and NIOSH OSHA
dBA hours minutes hours minutes seconds hours minutes
70 24            
73 12            
76 6            
79 3            
82 1 30          
85   45 8 0      
88   23 4 0      
90           8  
91   11 2 0      
92           6  
94   6 1 0      
95           4  
97   3   30 0 3  
100       15 0 2  
102           1 30
103       7 30    
105           1  
106       3 45    
109       1 53    
110             30
112         56    
115         28   15

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