Acoustics: Docent’s perspective on project development and the impact on hearing health

Abstract

Noise is one of the harmful agents most commonly found in the environment, in which continuous and protracted exposure may cause auditory and extra-auditory effects. To mitigate those effects on the individuals, it is necessary to develop acoustic projects aimed at reducing the noise sources. Despite acoustic being a well-known field, in fact, only few acoustic measures are yet implemented. The aim of this work is to investigate whether acoustics is taken into consideration by Engineers and Architects in the development of their projects, in view of the importance of noise attenuation for comfort, prevention of hearing losses and reduction of costs in collective measures for noise control. The study was carried out by conducting a survey developed exclusively for this research. Respondents to the survey were Engineer and Architect teachers from a university centre located in Belo Horizonte. During the analysis of the data collected, it was found that 60% of the respondents took acoustics and acoustic comfort into consideration when developing their respective projects; 40% took both noise attenuation for the prevention of hearing losses and the noise attenuation coefficients of the selected materials into account; and 30% responded that they consider the acoustics in their projects under the perspective of cost reduction in the collective measures for noise control. Those numbers raise reflections on how the contents of acoustics can be better explored in other areas that dialogue with Speech Therapy, from the standpoint of reducing the costs of collective control, encouraging hearing health promotion programs and the inclusion of the subject-matter in the education programs for the professionals in the field.