Evaluation of the exposure to noise of civil workers when excavating and compacting with pneumatic equipment in the sewage execution stage: Case study of Cuenca - Ecuador

The World Health Organization reports that one of the risks of acquired deafness is related to construction work, the workers in this industry are the most important human resource in the execution of works, however, although there are precedents that indicate that workers who are exposed to harmful levels of noise may experience hearing impairment; In the city of Cuenca, as in the whole country, executive decree 2393 governs “Regulation of health and safety of workers and improvement of the work environment”, which specifies the maximum exposure time per working day, it is unknown if there is hearing loss or impairment, when carrying out excavation and compaction work with pneumatic equipment in sewerage works, for this reason a statistical-comparative study, where the General Occupational Risk Insurance provides us with the statistics of occupational diseases on a monthly, annual and general basis; the field examinations carried out on the workers of the Cuenca case study, such as an audiometry that indicates whether there is hearing loss and a dosimetry that allows us to know the equivalent continuous noise level (LAeq), personal exposure to daily noise (LEX 8h) and dose of daily noise, through these variables obtained in the statistical review, will be related to the quantitative variables obtained in the field dosimetry, which will be analyzed and exposure to which the worker is subjected during a working day will be determined. of eight hours of work and the effects that said exposure produces, this result allows the employer or constructor to determine the capacity and performance of the workers since it will reduce fatigue, pain and increase job safety.