Hearing Loss Compensation Criteria Used by the Department of Labor Under the Federal Employees' Compensation Act

As part of a review of the administration of the Federal Employees' Compensation Act, an evaluation was conducted of criteria used by the Office of Workers' Compensation Programs (OECP) for awarding compensation for hearing loss. The review focused on one element of the criteria that is at variance with studies conducted by the American Academy of Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, and the National Academy of Sciences' Committee on Hearing, Bioacoustics and Biomechanics. This element is the formula used for computing hearing loss based on levels of loudness at which a person can hear various frequencies, deducting a value from the frequencies for normal ranges of loss.