Pedro Arezes es Profesor Catedrático en la Universidad de Minho (Portugal), donde coordina el Grupo de Investigación en Ingeniería Humana. En 2005, fue nombrado como el Director del Laboratorio de Ergonomía de la misma Universidad y miembro del Consejo de Dirección de la Maestría de Ingeniería Humana y de la tesis doctoral, Programa de Ingeniería Industrial y de Sistemas. Fue autor de más de 150 artículos en revistas internacionales y actas de congresos y como él ha colaborado con varias reistas internacionales en el ámbito de la ergonomía y seguridad, tanto como reviewer y como miembro del comité editorial. Él es también el Vice-Presidente de la Sociedad Portuguesa de Seguridad e Higiene (SPOSHO) desde su fundación en 2004.
Pedro Arezes is a Full Professor at the University of Minho (Portugal), where he coordinates the Human Engineering Research Group. In 2005, he was appointed as the Director of the Ergonomics Laboratory at the same University and member of the Direction Board of the Human Engineering MSc. and of the PhD. Programme in Industrial Engineering and Systems. He authored more than 150 papers in international journals and conference proceedings and, as he has been collaborating with several international peer-reviewed scientific journals in the domain of Ergonomics and Occupational Safety, both as a reviewer and member of the editorial committee. He is also the Vice-President of the Portuguese Society for Occupational Safety and Hygiene (SPOSHO) since its foundation in 2004.
The control of the risk to develop noise induced hearing loss is often achieved through the use of hearing protection devices (HPDs). However, and despite the apparent simplicity of this measure, its adoption is a complex issue and it involves the consideration of several physical factors, such as noise characterization, psychological factors, for example linked to the idiosyncrasy of the users and their specific behaviour, and health aspects, related to their hearing function. The efficiency of the HPDs, i.e. the ability to protect users’ hearing, will depend on the type of device and on its features, among which the configuration of the device, the used materials, and the previewed attenuation behaviour are the most relevant. In addition, it is necessary to consider other factors, such as those related to the characteristics of the noise and noise sources, the users’ physiological and anatomical characteristics and also the way the devices are used. Based on the fact that the attenuation of certain protectors under real conditions of use can be half (and sometimes less) of its nominal attenuation, it is necessary to assume that the catalogued attenuation is not reliable enough to estimate the real protection afforded by the devices. That is why it is so important to estimate the protection afforded by the HPDs by using the accurate methods. Finally, it is also important to acknowledge that there are several recent developments concerning the use of technology in HPDs. Accordingly, it seems that the future of HPDs is strongly associated to the use of devices with nonlinear attenuation behaviour, which can be used to improve the perceptibility of useful sounds in noisy environments. Nevertheless, this type of HPDs still have some unsolved drawbacks, and it is recognised that its application on occupational environments still has a long way to go.