EVALUATING THE LINK BETWEEN ACOUSTIC CLIMATE IN WORKPLACES AND EXTRA-AUDITORY DISORDERS: THE CASE OF SCHOOL ENVIRONMENTS

Extra-auditory disorders represent an emerging environmental and occupational issue, which negatively affects health and quality of life and work. School environments are complex working contexts, suitable for studying the link between acoustic climate and extra-auditory pathologies. The acoustic climate in schools can be compromised by noise coming from both internal (classrooms, corridors, gymnasium) and external sources. Exposure to noise can cause distraction and reduce the e effectiveness of communication, thus compromising learning. It can cause annoyance, fatigue, increased stress acting on the hypothalamic-pituitary- adrenal axis and it can indirectly cause phonatory impairment of teachers. Assessing the acoustic climate and its link with the extra-auditory effects of noise require to consider individual conditions of susceptibility such as individual sensitivity to noise, gender and age in correlation to the task performed. A workplace risk assessment including extra-auditory effects of noise exposure is a first step towards safer and quieter school environments: it should identify the disturbing sources, consider the characteristics of the workforce and plan improvement interventions. The Occupational Physician, as the global workplace health consultant, play a key role by collaborating in risk assessment, identifying at-risk working population, carrying out health surveillance, intercepting disturbs in their early stage, and informing and training workers.