Hearing loss is still one of the most prevalent occupational diseases in the United States and most other
industrialized countries (1-3).
In the United States at least one million workers in manufacturing are estimated to have sustained job-related hearing impairment, and about a half million of these workers have moderate to severe hearing impairment (I ).
Occupational hearing loss has long been recognized as a direct health effect of overexposure to noise, but only
recently has expo sure to solvents been consideredasa contributor to the development of hearing impairment (4-10).
There is evidence which suggests that noise interact'> synergistically with various drugs and chemicals (11-18).
Evidence is also beginning to accumulate which suggests that anototraumatic interaction may exist between noise and organic solvents.