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Raw case counts tell one story. Injury rates per 10,000 employees tell a very different — and more honest — one. We analyzed nine years of OSHA Injury Tracking Application data across 21,000+ establishments to find where workers face the greatest individual risk of occupational hearing loss. The results may surprise you.
Soundtrace built a database from nine years of OSHA ITA hearing loss data spanning 21,120 establishments. When we normalized the data to cases per 10,000 employees, the industry risk rankings shifted dramatically from what raw volume data suggests.
Ask most safety professionals which industries have the worst occupational hearing loss problem and you'll hear the same answers: manufacturing, construction, mining. They're not wrong — those sectors generate enormous case volumes. But volume alone is a misleading metric.
A company with 50,000 employees recording 500 hearing loss cases is performing very differently than a company with 200 employees recording 40. The first has an injury rate of 100 per 10,000 workers. The second has a rate of 2,000. The second company has the real problem.
That distinction — injury rate versus raw case count — is the difference between identifying where hearing loss cases accumulate and understanding where workers are actually most at risk. When we normalized our nine-year OSHA ITA dataset to cases per 10,000 employees, the industry rankings shifted dramatically.
The industries with the most hearing loss cases are not the same as the industries where workers face the greatest individual risk. That gap is where real compliance conversations should start.
The following reflects hearing loss cases per 10,000 employees for industries with 500 or more employees in the dataset. Industries with smaller sample sizes were excluded to reduce statistical volatility — the same methodology used by OSHA and BLS in their own published data.
Cases per 10,000 employees. Source: Soundtrace analysis of OSHA ITA data, 9-year dataset. Industries with <500 employees excluded.
Several industries that dominated the raw case count ranking — including Food & Beverage Manufacturing, which logged over 16,000 total cases across nine years — drop significantly once workforce size is factored in. That does not mean Food & Beverage has solved its hearing conservation problem. It means the picture is more nuanced than headlines suggest.
| Industry | Rate Rank | Raw Count Rank | Key Implication |
|---|---|---|---|
| Forestry & Logging | #1 | Not top 10 | Highest risk, lowest program penetration |
| Wood Products Mfg. | #2 | #4 | Risk consistent across both views |
| Fishing & Hunting | #3 | Not top 10 | Remote and seasonal — logistics barrier |
| Food & Beverage Mfg. | Not top 5 | #1 (16,288 cases) | Scale drives volume; rate is more manageable |
| Healthcare – Nursing | Mid-tier | Not top 15 | Counterintuitive; often overlooked entirely |
| Fabricated Metal Mfg. | #6 | #3 | Consistent risk across both views |
Forestry & Logging's injury rate stands apart from every other sector in the dataset — not by a small margin, but by roughly double the next-ranked industry. Yet it rarely appears in hearing conservation marketing, conference programming, or regulatory focus areas.
The reasons are structural. Forestry operations are often smaller, geographically dispersed, and less likely to have formal safety programs than large manufacturing facilities. Many operate under federal OSHA jurisdiction where enforcement resources are stretched. Chainsaw noise, heavy equipment, skidder operations, and log processing machinery all generate sustained exposures well above OSHA's 85 dBA action level.
For hearing conservation service providers, this represents both a compliance gap and a significant unmet need. Most of these operations lack audiometric testing infrastructure — which is precisely the problem Soundtrace's platform is built to solve.
Forestry & Logging has the highest hearing loss injury rate in the U.S. workforce. It also has some of the lowest rates of formal hearing conservation program adoption. That gap is not a coincidence.
Forestry & Logging's extraordinary rate warrants a caveat. The industry's total OSHA ITA reporting pool is smaller than manufacturing sectors. While the rate is directionally reliable — and consistent with NIOSH noise exposure data for the sector — the absolute figure carries more uncertainty than a rate derived from a large workforce. Interpret with appropriate context.
Beyond Forestry, the rate-normalized data surfaces several industries that consistently underperform on hearing conservation without attracting proportionate attention from vendors, regulators, or researchers.
Printing press environments generate significant continuous noise from mechanical presses, die cutters, and finishing equipment. Unlike construction noise — which is episodic and well-documented — printing noise is sustained across full shifts. The industry's mid-tier size means it often falls below the threshold where large compliance vendors focus their sales efforts, leaving many operations without a structured hearing conservation program. At roughly 258 cases per 10,000 employees, it outpaces industries most safety professionals would rank above it.
Commercial fishing operations involve diesel engine noise, winch and hydraulic systems, and processing equipment — often in enclosed spaces with minimal noise abatement. The industry's seasonal and remote nature makes consistent audiometric testing logistically challenging, and many workers are employed through arrangements that complicate the employer's OSHA obligations. The result is approximately 328 cases per 10,000 — the third-highest in the dataset — with almost no dedicated hearing conservation market serving it.
This one consistently surprises people. Healthcare appears in the mid-tier of our rate analysis at approximately 235 cases per 10,000 employees — a figure most safety professionals would not predict. The likely drivers include medical equipment alarms, laundry and food service machinery, physical plant noise in older facilities, and HVAC systems in enclosed care environments. It is a reminder that OSHA's hearing conservation standard applies broadly — not just to industries traditionally labeled noisy.
The three highest-rate industries outside traditional manufacturing and mining — Forestry, Fishing, and Healthcare — are also among the least served by hearing conservation vendors. High risk and low program penetration is a pattern, not a coincidence.
The rate data has practical implications for how hearing conservation programs should be designed, targeted, and evaluated — whether you are an employer, a safety consultant, or a service provider.
OSHA's permissible exposure limit (PEL) for noise is 90 dBA as an 8-hour time-weighted average. The action level — the threshold that triggers mandatory hearing conservation program requirements including audiometric testing — is 85 dBA. These are legal thresholds, not health-protective ones.
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) recommends an exposure limit of 85 dBA — which OSHA treats as an action level rather than a ceiling. Many hearing conservation professionals argue that full compliance with OSHA's standard is insufficient to prevent hearing loss in workers with long careers in high-noise environments.
Understanding this gap is central to building a hearing conservation program that performs rather than just complies. The industries with the highest injury rates in our data are not necessarily violating OSHA's PEL. Many are fully compliant on paper while still producing a steady stream of recordable cases. That is the definition of a program that needs improvement.
Under 29 CFR 1910.95, employers must implement a hearing conservation program when any employee's noise exposure equals or exceeds 85 dBA as an 8-hour time-weighted average. Program elements include noise monitoring, audiometric testing, hearing protection, training, and recordkeeping. The permissible exposure limit (PEL) is 90 dBA, above which engineering controls are also required.
Raw case counts reflect workforce size as much as they reflect risk. Normalizing to cases per 10,000 employees removes workforce size as a variable, making industry-to-industry comparisons meaningful. This is the approach OSHA and BLS use in their own reporting.
The analysis is based on the OSHA Injury Tracking Application (ITA), a publicly available database of employer-submitted injury and illness records. The Soundtrace dataset spans nine years and includes over 21,000 establishments across all 50 states. Industries with fewer than 500 total employees in the dataset were excluded to reduce statistical volatility.
Yes. OSHA 29 CFR 1910.95 applies to all general industry employers — including healthcare, transportation, and service sectors — where workers are exposed at or above 85 dBA TWA. The standard does not limit itself to manufacturing or construction. Any employer with noise-exposed workers above the action level has the same six-element program obligation.
Soundtrace provides in-house audiometric testing equipment, cloud-based audiogram management and STS tracking software, medical oversight, and compliance infrastructure built for distributed workforces, multi-site employers, and third-party service delivery. The platform eliminates the scheduling friction and record fragmentation that characterize traditional mobile van testing programs.
Soundtrace provides the audiometric testing infrastructure, recordkeeping software, and medical oversight employers need to build a program that actually protects workers — not just one that checks the box.
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