Association between Occupational Noise Exposure and Insomnia among Night-Shift Production Workers: A 4-Year Follow-up Study

• Published in: Noise & health 2023-07, Vol.25 (118), p.135-142
• Main Authors: Cho, Seunghyeon, Lim, Dae-Young, Kim, Suwhan, Kim, Hyeonjun, Kang, WonYang, Park, Won-Ju
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Blue collar workers; Follow-Up Studies; Hearing protection; Human exposure; Humans; Insomnia; Male; Males; Middle Aged; Night; Noise; Noise control; Noise levels; Noise reduction; Noise, Occupational - adverse effects; Noise, Occupational - prevention & control; Occupational exposure; Occupational Exposure - adverse effects; Occupational Exposure - analysis; Occupational health; occupational noise; Original; Production methods; Production processes; Regression analysis; Risk Factors; Shift work; shift worker; Sleep disorders; Sleep Initiation and Maintenance Disorders - epidemiology; Sleep Initiation and Maintenance Disorders - etiology; sleep problems; Statistical analysis; Tire industry; Workers; Working conditions; Workplace
• ISSN: 1463-1741; 1998-4030
• DOI: 10.4103/nah.nah_15_23

This study aimed to investigate whether occupational noise exposure is a risk factor for insomnia among male night-shift production workers. This study followed 623 male night-shift production workers at a tire manufacturing factory without insomnia for 4 years. Insomnia was evaluated based on the insomnia severity index at baseline and at 4-year follow-up. A score of ≥15 was defined as insomnia. The higher occupational noise exposure group was defined as those individuals exposed to 8-hour time-weighted-average noise above 80 dB (A). Participants' mean age was 46.3 ± 5.6 years. Of the 623 participants, 362 (58.1%) were in the higher occupational noise exposure group. At 4-year follow-up, insomnia occurred in 3.2% (n = 20) of the participants. In a multiple logistic regression analysis, the odds ratio of insomnia was 3.36 (95% confidence interval 1.083-10.405, P = 0.036) in the higher occupational noise exposure group when compared with the lower noise exposure group after adjusting for confounders. Our findings suggested that occupational noise exposure affected insomnia in male night-shift production workers. To prevent insomnia, efforts are required to reduce workplace noise exposure levels. Alternatively, moving to a less noisy work environment should be considered for workers with severe insomnia.